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GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS 



ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS 



EDITED BY 



GEORGE S. MORRIS. 



HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

A BOOK ON THE GENESIS OF THE CATEGORIES 
OF THE MIND. 



GRIGGS'S 
PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS. 

Under the Editorial Supervision of Prof. G. S. Morris. 

DEVOTED TO A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF THE MASTER- 
PIECES OF GERMAN THOUGHT. 



KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. By George S. 
Morris, Ph.D., late of the University of Michigan, . $1.25 

SCHELLING'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. By John 
Watson, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy, Queen's Univer- 
sity, Kingston, Canada, . $1.25 

FICHTE'S SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. By C. C. Everett, 
D.D., Professor of Theology in Harvard University, . $1 .25 

HEGEL'S ./ESTHETICS. By J. S. Kedney, S.T.D., Professor 

in the Seabury Divinity School, Faribault, Minn., . $1.25 

KANT'S ETHICS. By President Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., $1.25 
HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE STATE AND OF HIS- 
TORY. By George S. Morris, Ph.D., late of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, $1.25 

LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN 
UNDERSTANDING. By John Dewey, Ph.D., of the Uni- 
versity' of Michigan, . . . . .. . . . $1.25 

HEGEL'S LOGIC. A Book on the Genesis of the Categories 
of the Mind. By William T. Harris, LL.D., U. S. Commis- 
sioner of Education. 



These excellent books, as remarkable for ability as for clearness, 
will do much to clear the way and make the mastery of the German 
Systems a comparatively easy task.— New York Examiner: 

One of the most valuable literary enterprises of the day. Each 
volume is a condensed presentation made by an author who com- 
bines thorough philosophical study with literary talent, and who 
has made a specialty of the philosopher whose work is interpreted. 
— Boston Traveler. 

This Series of Philosophical Classics, edited by Prof. George S. 
Morris, of Michigan, and published in the enterprising city of Chi- 
cago, deserves to be much better known than it has hitherto been 
to students of German Philosophy on this side of the Atlantic. 
The exposition of the works taken in hand is full and minute.— 
Mind, London, England. 



HEGEL'S LOGIC. 



A BOOK ON THE 



GENESIS OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE MIND. 

A CEITICAL 'EXPOSITION. 

J 
By WILLIAM t/hAKEIS, LL.D., 

U. S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. 



K H diaXeKTiurj jusQodoS juor?/ rtopsverai rdS 

v7toQe6ei$ dvaipov6a kit avrrjv rrjv dpxyv, iva 

fiefiaiGQtirjrai .... kcci to tt}^ ipvxrjs ojn/J-a tfpsjua 

eXnai kcci dvdyei avoo. 

Plato's Republic, 533— D. 







3X3 %0 



CHICAGO: 

S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 

1890. 






Copyright, 1890, 
By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 



KNIGHT & LEONARD CO.. PRINTERS, CHICAGO. 



TO 

HENRY C. BROCKMEYER, 

WITH GRATEFUL RECOLLECTIONS OF ASSISTANCE FROM HIM IN THE 
STUDY OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY, 

THIS BOOK IS WITH HIS PERMISSION DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



WHEN I promised Professor Morris to write 
this book (in 1883), I intended to throw 
together some of my previous studies on Hegel's 
Logic, with the addition of more or less new 
matter in the form of commentary and connect- 
ing introductions. I had worked pretty con- 
stantly on the subject of this logic — though 
mostly using the expositions of it which I 
found in histories of philosophy, rather than 
Hegel's own exposition — as a sort of center of 
all my thinking since the year I860, making, 
it is true, very slow progress. I had always 
cherished the project of writing some sort of 
commentary to the work, but did not think 
that I could prepare a worthy book for twenty 
years. 

I soon discovered that if I were to place 
before the public an immature work on this 
subject I should find myself embarrassed at any 
time afterwards to obtain a hearing for the 
ripened views which I hoped to reach. I began, 
accordingly, to prepare a more thorough treat- 
ise, and to this end I set about a study of the 
entire scope and plan of the Hegelian Logic, 
and especially of its relations to other branches 



VI PREFACE. 

of knowledge and to preceding philosophic systems 
as well. I struggled for a long time with the pre- 
liminary question : how-to convey to a neophyte an 
idea of the province of such a system of "pure 
thought" — how, in short, to demonstrate the 
necessary existence of pure thought and show 
its significance in solving all problems. Such 
pure thought, could one demonstrate its exist- 
ence as an element in all concrete problems, 
would furnish the formulae for the solution of 
all questions. 

But these new investigations consumed much 
time. I gradually felt myself turning around 
from my attitude of faith in the Hegelian ex- 
position, to an attitude of criticism. Formerl} 
I had trusted where I did not see — trusted 
tfyat I should see when I had gained more 
power of apprehension. Now I attacked what 
I could not verify with my present insight, 
and insisted on its falsity until it should dem- 
onstrate its truth. In this frame of mind I 
discovered many passages wherein it was evi- 
dent that Hegel had introduced what he should 
call "external reflections," and many more 
wherein the "dialectic thread" w T as supposititious. 
For example, in the first chapter of The Phenom- 
enology, his assumption of the Here and Now 
as the forms of immediate sense-preception 
would be seen to be necessary and exhaustive, 
had he called attention to the fact that time 
and space are the necessary forms of all sense- 
perception, as well as the logical conditions of 






PREFACE. Vll 

the existence of the sense-world. The immedi- 
ately present objects of time and space are nec- 
essarily Now and Here. Such omission leaves 
the exposition apparently without exhaustive 
universality. It seems an accident that Hegel 
takes the now and here as the two forms. 
This is, of course, a defect only of the exposition, 
and not of the underlying insight of Hegel 
himself. We can see that he saw this exhaus- 
tiveness, but we can see also that he ought to 
have expounded it, but was held back by his 
desire to avoid "external reflection/' a de- 
sire that amounts to a "phobia" with Hegel. 
He strives always to make the object "unfold 
itself " (sick enhvickeln), and shrinks from ex- 
pressing any idea until it comes obviously before 
us in consequence of objective dialectic. 

This " objective dialectic" is the exhibition of 
the inadequateness and imperfection of a thought 
when it is assumed to be universally valid and 
true. Such a thought, if assumed in each of the 
forms of the absolute, namely, (a) as by itself- 
and independent ; (b) as in negative relation to 
itself as its own other, (c) in identity with itself 
in its other, will show up its imperfection and 
lead to a deeper thought which contains explicitly 
what the former thought has held only implicitly 
and has had to show dialectically as its contra- 
diction. 

This process, with the pure forms of experi- 
ence — that is to say, with the categories under- 
lying experience — gives us a sort of organon, or 



Vlll PREFACE. 

logic of ontology, containing in general formulae 
all the solutions to be found in experience. 

Just as in the case of mathematics, the analytical 
solution given in the algebraic formulae is a gen- 
eral one and furnishes the pure form for all con- 
crete or applied solutions ; so the " pure-thought" 
solution, according to this logic, develops what 
is essential in all solutions of particular cases ; 
for these particular cases are only applications 
of the pure-thought elements to limited spheres 
of conditions. Once master of the general solu- 
tion, one can solve the practical questions that 
fall under it. 

I must ask the reader to indulge me in further 
autobiographical reminiscences with the purpose of 
explaining what I have set forth as strictures on 
the Hegelian system. 

As early as 1858 I obtained my first insight into 
this philosophy, in studying Kant's Critique of 
Pure Reason. I saw that time and space presup- 
pose reason as their logical condition and that they 
are themselves the logical condition of what is in 
the world. Man, in so far as he is conscious reason, 
therefore transcends the world of time and space 
and is an immortal being, and possesses transcen- 
dental freedom also inasmuch as he is not condi- 
tioned essentially by the world — not essentially, but 
only in the expression or manifestation of his will, 
which expression he may altogether withhold. I 
saw also the necessity of the logical inference that 
the unity of time and space presupposes one ab- 
solute Reason. God,, freedom, and immortality 



PKEFACE. IX 

have therefore seemed to me to be demonstrable 
ever since the December evening in 1858 when I 
obtained my insight into the true inference from 
Kant's Transcendental JEsthetic. In 1859 I 
worked out my refutation of Sir William Ham- 
ilton's Law of the Conditioned, by proving the 
infinitude of space and showing that the supposed 
antinomy rests on confounding mental pictures 
with pure thought. The unpicturability of infi- 
nite space does not contradict its infinitude, but 
confirms it. In 1863 I arrived at the insight 
which Hegel has expressed in his Fur-sich-seyn or 
Being-for-itself, which I called, and still call " in- 
dependent being." I did not obtain this insight 
by study of Hegel's logic, however, but rather by 
following out the lines of thought begun in 1858. 
This insight I supposed at the time to be specially 
that of Hegel, though I had not as yet read one- 
tenth of his logic. But I discovered afterwards 
that it is the most important insight of Plato, 
and that Aristotle uses it as the foundation of 
his philosophy. It has in one form or another 
furnished the light for all philosophy worthy of 
the name since Plato first saw it. St. Thomas 
Aquinas presents it in the beginning of his 
Snmma Tlieologica. Leibnitz states it as the 
basis of his Monadology. But each thinker may 
claim originality, not only for his statement of 
it but also for the insight itself. For it cannot 
be borrowed from another, it is itself an orig- 
inal insight, because it is and must be a seeing 
at first hand of the necessity of all existence of 



X PREFACE. 

whatever character to be grounded in self-deter- 
mined being. All dependent being is a part of 
independent being ; and all independent being is 
self-determined being. ~ 

The absolute is not, therefore, an empty abso- 
lute, an indeterminate being, but it is determined. 
It is not determined through another, but through 
itself. If there is no independent being there is 
no dependent being. If there is not self-deter- 
mined being there is no being whatever. 

It was a year or two later that I came upon a 
distinction between the true actual as totality, and 
the changeable real, which is partly actual and 
partly potential — in the process of change I saw 
that the full actuality is involved, partly affirma- 
tive as giving what reality there is to the pheno- 
mena, and partly negative as producing the change 
which negates the present real and actualizes in its 
place a new phase of potentiality. 

It was in 1864 that I obtained an insight into 
the logical subordination of fate to freedom — the 
totality of conditions cannot have a fate outside it, 
but must be spontaneous in itself, and self-deter- 
mined — hence all fate and all changes not spon- 
taneous must be secondary and derivative from a 
higher source that is free. In 1866 I arrived at 
the first insight that is distinctively Hegelian and 
the most important apertju of Hegel's logic. I 
wrote this out in a letter to my friend Adolph E. 
Kroeger, an ardent Fichtean, whom I had discov-. 
ered and was endeavoring to proselyte for Hegel. 
I called it the distinction between comprehension 



PREFACE. xi 

(or Begriff), and Idea (Idee). It should really be 
the distinction that Hegel makes between negative 
unity or substantiality and Begriff or Idee. It is 
undoubtedly Hegel's highest thought. It is the 
insight into the nature of true being to be altruis- 
tic and to exist in the self-activity of others. It is 
the thought that lies at the basis of the doc- 
trine of the trinity, though rather as a logical 
implication than as a conscious idea. It is also 
the highest goal of the Platonic- Aristotelian system 
— indicated in the assertion that God is without 
envy ( The Timaeus and The Metaphysics), also in 
the doctrine of the Good as the highest category. 

This thought is not reached in its pure form by 
Plato or Aristotle, but rather in its ethical form — 
as it is the very fountain source of Ethics. Hegel's 
originality consists in seeing for the first time the 
pure-thought form of this doctrine. He names it 
Idee, to honor Plato as its first discoverer. For 
doubtless Hegel read into the Platonic doctrine of 
Ideas this pure thought. It must certainly be 
admitted that the attribution of the thought to 
Plato is correct, though with him it is not to be 
found stated adequately in its pure-thought form. 

In 1866 I for the first time read through Hegel's 
larger logic, reading it in the English translation 
that had been made for myself and two other 
friends (George Stedman and J. H. Watters), by 
Henry C. Brockmeyer, in 1859 and 1860. I 
copied the work entire from the manuscript and 
am sure I read every word of it. But I am equally 
sure that I did not understand at the most any- 



Xll PREFACE. 

thing beyond the first part of the first volume and 
could not follow any of the discussions in the 
second and third volumes, or even remember the 
words from one page to another. It was all over 
my head, so to speak. I had of course made my- 
self acquainted with the categories and sub-catego- 
ries of the work years before through histories of 
philosophy, and was gradually learning to think 
something into them ; but I could make little of 
Hegel's deductions or discussions of them. This 
experience of my own, which lasted for years, is I 
presume the experience of other students of Hegel 
and also of students of any other system of deep 
philosophy. One has first to seize its general 
thought, its trend as a whole, and gradually 
descend to its details. 

The translation which I copied out still exists, 
but has never been printed, any portion of it. 
Mr. Brockmeyer, whose acquaintance I had made 
in 1858, is, and was even at that time, a thinker 
of the same order of mind as Hegel, and before 
reading Hegel, except the few pages in Hedge's 
German Prose Writers, had divined Hegel's chief 
ideas and the position of his system, and in- 
formed me on my first acquaintance with him in 
1858 that Hegel was the great man among modern 
philosophers, and that his large logic was the work 
to get. I sent immediately to Germany for it and 
it arrived late in the year. Mr. Brockmeyer's 
deep insights and his poetic power of setting them 
forth with symbols and imagery furnished me and 
my friends of those early years all of our outside 



PREFACE. Xlll 

stimulus in the study of German philosophy. He 
impressed us with the practicality of philosophy, 
inasmuch as he could flash into the questions of 
the day, or even into the questions of the 
moment, the highest insight of philosophy and 
solve their problems. Even the hunting of wild 
turkeys or squirrels was the occasion for the use 
of philosophy. Philosophy came to mean with 
us, therefore, the most practical of all species of 
knowledge. We used it to solve all problems con- 
nected with school-teaching and school manage- 
ment. We studied the "dialectic" of politics and 
political parties and understood how measures and 
men might be combined by its light. But our 
chief application of philosophy was to literature 
and art. Mr. Denton J. Snider, who entered 
our circle in 1866, has published his studies on 
Shakespeare, Goethe and Homer, and Mr. Brock- 
meyer has printed in the Journal of Speculative 
Philosophy his Letters on Goethe's Faust, and 
these will show sufficiently the spirit and methods 
of our studies in literature. 

In 1873 I discovered the substantial identity of 
all East Indian doctrines. As early as 1856 I had 
begun to read oriental literature, but had not 
seized its essential spirit. I had looked for the 
same diversity of points of view that I was accus- 
tomed to in modern philosophy. Cousin's analysis 
of the oriental systems, as well as other histories 
of philosophy, had confirmed me in this mistaken 
path. But I undertook a thorough study of the 
Bhagavad Gita in 1872 and for the first time saw 



XIV PREFACE. 

that the differences of systems were superficial, 
and that the First Principle pre-supposed and 
even explicitly stated by the Sanscrit writers was 
everywhere the same, and that this is the princi- 
ple of Pure Being as the negative unity of all 
things. In this I came to see Hegel's deep dis- 
cernment which early in this century, in the dawn 
of oriental study, had enabled him to penetrate 
the true essence of Hindoo thought even in the 
Western wrappages in which the European first 
discoverers had brought it away. Hegel could 
perceive "the genuine oriental thinking through 
the English and French translations which inter- 
preted the same into modern ways of philosophiz- 
ing. Hegel's greatest apergu is the difference 
between the oriental and occidental spirit of 
thinking and doing. 

It was in 1879 that I came to my final and pres- 
ent standpoint in regard to the true outcome of 
the Hegelian system, but it was six years later 
that I began to see that Hegel himself has not 
deduced the logical consequences of his system in 
the matter of the relation of Nature to the Abso- 
lute Idea. I have explained in the following 
work in many places this divergence of his system 
from the true doctrine of the Absolute Idea. 
But the wrong explanation of the use of Nature, 
strange to say, does not vitiate Hegel's theoiy of 
human life, and of the Christian church. His 
doctrine of the Trinity makes the Second Person, 
or Logos, to be Nature, whereas it should make 
the Logos to be eternally a Person like the First, 



PREFACE. XV 

and Nature should be the Processio of the Holy 
Spirit. But he rightly interprets the doctrine of 
the invisible Church as the body whose spirit is 
the Holy Spirit. 

This defect in interpreting the Absolute Idea 
gives rise to a species of pantheism which says 
that the Absolute is real only in the process of 
Nature, and his personality actual only in histori- 
cal persons. This is not Hegel's precise doctrine 
but it may be inferred from that part of it which 
makes Nature to be the Second Person of the 
Trinity. 

11 This criticism on the system of Hegel, so far 
as I am aware, is a new one, and I am confident 
of its truth. 

I will only add here that the interpretation of 
the doctrine of reflection, which I have discussed at 
length in treating of the second book of this Logic, 
is the result of many years' study, beginning with 
a series of expositions undertaken before the 
Kant Club, of St. Louis, in 1877-79, and con- 
tinuing at intervals until 1887. In 1878-1881, 
I translated, with the assistance of Mr. James 
S. Garland, the entire • second volume of the 
Logic and published it, with a commentary to 
some portions of it. 

This doctrine of reflection, I think, is the 
key to Hegel's dialectic, if anything may be 
called a " key " to it. It is the exposition also 
of what he calls the Universal {Das Allgemeine), 
and the notion or idea ( Der Begriff ). As 
such I respectfully invite the attention of all 



XVI 



PREFACE. 



students of the philosophy of Hegel to it, and 
venture to express the hope that a new and 
fruitful road to Hegel's deeper thoughts may be 
opened by studying that portion of the Logic 
which expounds the relation of " determining 
reflection" to "external reflection." 

W. T. HARRIS. 

Washington, D. C, August, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAPTER. I.— Philosophy and its Problem 1 

Distinctions between science, art, religion and phil- 
osophy; enigma of the world the problem of evil; 
how a perfect being can create what is imperfect ; 
Oriental solution denies the real existence of evil ; the 
world is an illusion ; Greek thought sees in the world 
a manifestation of divine reason ; Christian thought 
finally explains imperfection through the procession 
of the Third Divine Person; religion a sort of institu- 
tional thinking ; philosophy a product of the thinking 
of individuals, free and without obedience to author- 
ity ; the contents of Hegel's great works ; his logic a dis- 
cussion of the genesis of the categories of the mind; 
why these categories must be regarded as objective 
laws of being, as well as subjective forms of knowing. 

CHAPTER II.— The Greek and German Philosophical 

Principles 22 

Hegel the first to unite the Greek ontological results 
with the German psychological results ; Aristotle's self- 
active Reason at the basis of Christian theology ; what 
Plato meant by "Idea; 11 Fichte and Schelling give it 
the name of subject-objectivity ; the real significance of 
Kant's labors; the Greek solution turns on the idea of 
causality; Aristotle's four causes; ancient skepticism 
doubts the existence of objects; modern skepticism 
doubts our ability to know objects as they are ; ancient 
skepticism objective, modern subjective; nominalism 
the beginning of modern skepticism; Aristotle's "en- 
telechy," and Plato's "Idea" the same as Hegel's 
"Begriff 11 or self-activity; Hegel's "Idee 11 what Aris- 
totle calls a " second entelechy" and Leibnitz the "Mo- 
nad of monads ; " Scholasticism arose to refute Moslem 
pantheism; adopts Aristotle's thought; how Christian- 
ity is the germ that at length produces subjectivity, at 
first as skepticism in nominalism and Hume's philoso- 
phy, and next as philosophy of the absolute in Kant 

xvii 



xvm CONTEXTS. 

and Hegel; Kant's subjective skepticism so thorough- 
going that it refutes itself and becomes a basis for ob- 
jective ontology. 

CHAPTER IIL— Hegel's Education and the influence of 

his Contemporaries upon him 45 

Early influences; discipleship of Schelling; study of 
Greek literature; Schelling' s constructive efforts in in- 
terpreting the deep thoughts of the mystics ; his insight 
into the substantiality of nature, which Fichte denied ; 
nature and mind the two poles and the Absolute Reason 
the identity ; Hegel adopts this view. 

CHAPTER IV.— Hegel's Voyage of Discovery— Thing, 

Force, Law 57 

When Schelling deserted his doctrine that Absolute 
Reason is the identity of nature and mind, and adopted 
the view that the absolute is an empty infinite devoid 
of :the characteristics of mind and nature, Hegel sepa- 
rated from him and continued to hold the doctrine of 
Reason as the Absolute; the Phenomenology his first 
work as independent thinker ; analysis of the Phenom- 
enology; sense-certitude; Perception; how the unity 
and variety in things is to be explained: different hy- 
potheses rejected and the idea of Force substituted for 
Thing as a more adequate conception of the reality; 
the dialectic of Force ; each force needs another to in- 
cite it; inciting and incited forces make a system of 
which the internal truth is law; self-differentiation 
and self -identification the truth at the bottom of the 
ideas of force and law; self -activity, therefore, the 
presupposition of all being: how Schelling came to 
lose this insight; Spinoza's Substance compared with 
HegersBegriff. 

CHAPTER V.— Voyage of Discovery continued— Begriff 

or Self-activity 74 

Correlation of forces and the idea of law; Law presup- 
poses self-activity: the use of the word Begriff or no- 
tion for self-activity misleading; with the insight into 
self-activity as the essence of the objective world, 
consciousness has become self-consciousness. 

CHAPTER VI.— Voyage of Discovery continued— the eth- 
ical world 82 

Self-consciousness manifests itself in history first by 
life and death struggles, out of which emerges the in- 



CONTENTS. XIX 

stitution of dominion and servitude ; the slave takes 
refuge in his inner self and formulates ethical codes ; 
out of an insight into ethics there grows a higher con- 
sciousness of the rationality of the world; the first 
step of insight into objective Reason is the interest in 
nature which observes and experiments; happiness, 
philanthropy, and virtue ; the establishment of insti- 
tutions by man Hegel treats as the realization of spirit, 
i. e. the realization of a higher self than the individual ; 
distinction between self-consciousness, Reason, and 
Spirit ; Spirit or the personality of the social whole ut- 
ters its will in the form of ethical and social laws and 
customs, and requires education to prepare for it; the 
individual is cultured by self-estrangement, he puts off 
his natural impulses and puts on habits of acting and 
thinking according to ethical forms, customs and 
usages ; culture enables him to see the rationality of 
the ethical ; but at first it destroys external authority 
and leads to revolution; the reign of terror; reaction 
in mysticism. 

CHAPTER VII.— Voyage of Discovery continued— religion 103 
Religion a higher activity of the soul ; personal rela- 
tion to the Absolute; sketch of the history of relig- 
ion ; evolution from nature-religion through art-relig- 
ion to revealed religion or the religion that teaches that 
the Absolute reveals himself to his creatures and lifts 
them up into communion with himself; the doctrine of 
the Logos; God's knowing is willing or creating; the 
Logos creates the processio by recognizing his own de- 
rivation ; Christianity reveals an absolute entirely ethi- 
cal. 

CHAPTER VIII.— Voyage of Discovery concluded— Abso- 
lute Knowing 109 

Since God's knowing is creating, the highest form of 
the human mind must be absolute knowing; defect of 
symbolic expression; philosophic form of knowing; 
the religion of a revealed God presupposes in man the 
power of knowing the absolute ; agnosticism presup- 
poses pantheism ; it sets up an absolute devoid of attri- 
butes; revealed religion teaches a personal absolute; 
the nature of comprehension. 

CHAPTER IX.— Hegel's Method ' 122 

Hegel's method, that of tracing out the result of self- 
activity, which is his first principle ; cause contains as 



XX C0KTE2s T TS. 

its nucleus, self activity ; so does correlation of forces ; 
the pantheistic idea of substance is the second stage of 
thought and inseparable from the idea of the relativ- 
ity of all things; but subject is the true substance 
according to Hegel ; the absolute is a Person. 

CHAPTER X.— Pure Thought— Trendelenburg 1 s Objec- 
tions 127 

The beginning of Hegel's logic with the most elemen- 
tary pure thought ; this is being, and all experience is a 
further determination of this idea ; Trendelenburg ob- 
jects that Hegel names the ideas of pure thought by fa- 
miliar words ; two parallel lines of thought, one of de- 
duction and the other of recognition of what is deduced 
as identical with the contents of experience ; Trendel- 
enburg therefore points out only an act of identifying 
pure thought results as the explanation of experience, 
but does not disprove pure thought itself. 

CHAPTEE XI. — The three categories of Hegel's Logic— _ 

AN OUTLINE OF PURE THOUGHT 137 

Being (Seyn), essence (Wesen), Idea (Idee), the three 
great categories of Hegel's Logic; immediateness, me- 
diation, absolute mediation; isolated independence, 
dependence and relativity, concrete independence 
and self relation; empty indeterminateness, determi- 
nation through others, self-determination ; mediation 
makes immediateness possible; the true being is self- 
mediated; the lower categories not adequate to express 
this truth; theosophy, correlation of forces; Emerson's 
Brahma; idea is self-activity; the Logos; the Trinity. 

CHAPTER XII. — Hegel's absolute as the true beginning 

OF HIS SYSTEM . . . : 146 

Three beginnings to a system of philosophy; being and 
thought are one in God's knowing: Hegel reached the 
insight into self-activity as the first principle of all 
things before he could begin his system. 

CHAPTER XIIL— Analysis of Hegel's Begriff or Notion 

AS SELF- ACTIVITY — UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR AND SINGU- 
LAR 152 

Self-activity contains the phase of universality as self- 
determining, and that of particularity as self-deter- 
mined ; it is individual as a whole, or as particular ele- 
vated into universality; negative unity; the true actu- 
ality is not mere reality, but reality plus all its possibil- 



CONTENTS. XXI 

ities not yet realized; Plato's " Ideas " are true actuali- 
ties of this kind ; Aristotle's " entelechies " the same ; 
the relation of Hegel's thought to Aristotle's; self-ac- 
tivity recognized in the forms of nutrition, sensation, 
, locomotion, thought, volition; Plato's "self-motion; " 
Aristotle's "active reason; " why the faculties of sense- 
perception and memory perish ; the outcome of pure 
thought is the idea of God ; analysis of the idea of true 
personal individuality ; explanation of the dual cate- 
gories, such as cause and effect, thing and properties, 
by self -relation. 

CHAPTER XIV.— Determinateness as Quality— Being. . . 166 

The simplest possible thought, that of pure being; He- 
gel's definition of it as utter indeterminateness and 
emptiness identical with pure naught; thought think- 
ing its own form devoid of content ; naught and being 
merely two words for the same empty idea ; hence the 
paradox of Hegel's idea of becoming as the unity of 
being and naught; becoming requires difference as 
well as identity, and this difference Hegel fails to show ; 
an attempt to show the real insight involved here ; the 
true thought of pure being is self-antithesis or becom- 
ing; Plato's statement of the dialectic; the moments of 
the becoming are beginning and ceasing rather than 
being and naught, and hence becoming cancels itself 
and determinate being results. 

CHAPTER XV.— Reflection on the method of Hegel's 

FIRST CHAPTER 182 

Hegel's beginning (pure being) is not a first principle 
but the farthest removed possible from it; whatever is 
proved true of pure thought must be true of objective 
realizations of it; the categories at the beginning are 
annuled through their own contradictions ; they have 
no " valid sphere ; " these logical categories not God's 
thought, but the human process of rising to the thought 
of the absolute; God's thought the Trinity. 

CHAPTER XVI.— The category of determinate being or 

QUALITY 186 

Reality and negation, the two threads of determinate 
being; each as containing the other is a somewhat op- 
posed to another; somewhat as che first negation of ne- 
gation; Hegel's repudiation of abstract indeterminate 
universals; his "absolute" an individual or personal 
being. 



XX11 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVII.— Finitude 192 

Dependence implies finitude or relativity; quality is 
the form of being in which somewhat depends on the 
other, and the other on another ; the subordinate cate- 
gories of Being-in-itself and being-for-other, character- 
istic distinction, limit, destination, restraint and ought; 
' why Hegel discriminates so many sub-categories in this 
place; outline of the dialectic process from pure being 
to being for-itself. 

CHAPTER XVIII.— Infinitude 202 

The infinite is the union of the somewhat and the other 
so that the somewhat is its own other ; Plato the first to 
discover the solution of the problem of the category of 
quality or finitude ; self-activity solves all its condi- 
tions ; infinitude is the quality of being for-itself, i. e. 
of independent being ; the infinite not empty of rela- 
tions but self-related; dialectic transition from de- 
pendent being to independent being; quantity. 

CHAPTER XIX.— Being-for-itself 207 

Every whole a being for itself or independent; also a 
self-activity ; how the idea of one-ness arises ; negative 
unity; what Hegel means by " being-for-one ; " one of 
many ; each one composed of ones ; quantity is an ag- 
gregate of ones, each unit being also an aggregate. 

CHAPTER XX.— The finite and the infinite— a commen- 
tary on Hegel's discussion of these ideas 212 

The "other;" "in-itself ; " Hegel's order of treating 
the categories; finitude; agnosticism; Hegel's verbal 
quibbles; the ought and the restraint; destination and 
actual condition; the "ought" implies a synthesis of 
somewhat and other or the infinite ; ideality a very im- 
portant category ; the erratum in Hegel's text— identi tat 
for ideelitat. 

CHAPTER XXI.— Being for itself— a Commentary on 

Hegel's Discussion 228 

The dialectic of being is a progression from being and 
naught as the extremes of a dualism to the insight 
which sees the negative to be only the activity of self- 
determination ; being-for-one; ideality of the qualita- 
tive moments; explanation of six moments that consti- 
tute the idea of the One according to Hegel ; why these 
six moments appear as independent and coordinate ; 
they constitute an analysis of self-activity; the atom 



CONTENTS. XX111 

and the void; Hegel's use of the terms repulsion and 
attraction misleading; divisibility essential to quantity. 

CHAPTER XXII.— Quantity 242 

Schelling's dictum, all determination is quantitative; 
in what sense it is true ; review of the dialectical pro- 
gress from being to quantity; the sub-categories of 
quantity; tautological definitions of quantity; the con- 
tents of Hegel 1 s fourteen extensive notes on quantity; 
full discussion of his note on the Kantian antinomy of 
the limitation of the world in time and space; Kant's 
antinomy rather that of infinitude of space than of the 
world in space ; not a real antinomy after all, for its 
thesis and antithesis presuppose the same thought. 

CHAPTER XXIII. —The relation of quantity to quality 

ELUCIDATED 257 

Quantity the union of attraction and repulsion in the 
sense that Hegel uses these terms; attraction the pre- 
dominance of ideality, and repulsion the predomi- 
nance of " reflection-into-itself ;" quantity is self-deter- 
mination with the self left out; the dialectic that 
leads out of quality to quantity really leads to the ab- 
solute idea at once— from the finite to the infinite, as 
Plato and Aristotle saw; Hegel takes next the most 
immediate phase of self-determined being and finds it 
to be quantity ; three points of view in which Hegel 
treats each category; what "indifference " means with 
Hegel; nominalism and realism; the general name 
stands for the determining process, and not for the par- 
ticular individual nor for the abstract class ; the true 
actuality is this determining process; the deeper mean- 
ing of quantity as the most abstract concept of subject- 
objectivity or self-consciousness; the Logos thinks the 
processio as beginning with empty space and time ; 
quantity the form of self-determination without the 
substance of it; continuity and discreteness; sum and 
unity; arithmetical processes explained; extensive and 
intensive quantity ; dialectic of the transition from ex- 
tensive to intensive quantity seemingly a verbal quib- 
ble ; the real thought underlying it, not stated by He- 
gel. 

CHAPTER XXIV.— Quantitative Ratio and the higher 

mathematical analysis 275 

The differences between Hegel's two expositions of 
quantity— the large logic compared with the small 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

logic of the Encyclopaedia; quantitative ratio the high- 
est form of quantity ; constituent units, sum of these 
units and including unity the three moments of quan- 
tity ; the limit of extensive quantity the sum, hut the 
constituent units the limit of degree ; hence degree is 
qualitative unity ; Hegel ought to have placed intensive 
before extensive quantity ; maxima and minima ; quan- 
titative ratio ; ratio of powers ; measure. 

CHAPTER XXV.— Measure 281 

Measure the union of quantity and quality in such 
manner that the increase or decrease of quantity 
changes the quality; Hegel's logical procedure ascends 
and draws up the ladder after it ; not pure being but 
absolute personality is the basis; measure expresses 
better than quality or quantity what the latter are in- 
tended to express ; Darwin's idea of evolution by survi- 
val of the fittest, by reaction against environment, has 
revolutionized natural science ; the moments of meas- 
ure are quantitative ratios ; these moments must also be 
measures, and hence a series of measures arises ; how 
measure develops its contradiction, and the measure- 
less results ; resume of the entire dialectic of Being. 

CHAPTER XXVI —Essence 296 

Essence is the idea of universal relativity; everything 
entirely dependent on something else ; everything a 
phenomenon ; Hegel writes this logic from the stand- 
point of the Absolute Idea; pantheistic religions as- 
sume essence as the highest principle; essence the 
formless absolute ; Brahma ; pure being versus essence ; 
the twelve Nidanas of Buddhism; the dialectical 
origin of essence ; the sub-categories of essence ; the 
changes made by Hegel in their order in the Encyclo- 
paedia ; the changes concern the words that name the 
successive thoughts rather than the thoughts them- 
selves. 

CHAPTER XXVII. — Reflection as the key to Hegel's 

Dialectic 309 

Appearance and refiection-into-itself ; the dialectic a 
process of finding presuppositions; categories of es- 
sence negative and the source of skepticism ; Reflec 
tion as positing, as external, and as determining ; its 
treatment in the small logic ; return-to-self or self -rela- 
tion the form of being ; the positing reflection ; its sub- 
tlety'; Hegel's great merit that he gains a complete 



CONTENTS. XXV 

insight into the movement of reflection ; his forerun- 
ners ; the difference between positing and presuppos- 
ing reflection; external reflection separates positing 
from presupposing reflection; "plain common sense 1 ' 
uses this point of view; how reflection-into-self pro- 
duces identity and difference ; determining reflection ; 
how it arises from the dialectic of external reflection ; 
resume of this subtle discussion which is the key to 
Hegel's entire logic. 

CHAPTER XXVIII.— The Category of Causality 329 

Identity, difference, contrariety, contradiction; He- 
gel's confused way of speaking of contradiction and 
the excluded middle ; ground or substrate ; form and 
content; condition and conditioned ; exposition in the 
small logic; phenomenon; thing and force; actuality 
as the union of the internal and external; necessity 
the union of possibility and reality; the essence of the 
causal relation is self-activity; necessity or fate; re- 
ciprocal action ; causa sui ; self activity is the presup- 
position of essence. 

CHAPTER XXIX.— The formal logic notion and judg- 
ment 349 

The third volume of the logic treats of self -activity or 
Begriff ; this is the ego ; the notion as universal, partic- 
ular and singular; judgments of determinate being, of 
reflection, of necessity, of the notion; (1) positive, (2) 
negative, (3) infinite ; (1) singular, (2) particular, (3) uni- 
versal; (1) categorical, (2) hypothetical, (3) disjunctive; 
(1) assertorical, (2) problematic, (3) apodictic; Rosen- 
kranz's classification. 

CHAPTER XXX.— Formal logic continued— the syllo- 
gism. 360 

Deduction of the syllogistic figures ; the major premise 
of the first figure proved by the third figure, and the 
minor premise by the second figure ; the syllogisms of 
reflection express the quantity of mediation ; the syllo- 
gisms of necessity express the totality of determination 
or self-determination ; the syllogism as clew to the psy- 
chological process of sense-perception ; it begins with 
the second figure, recognizing the class of the object; 
uses next the first figure suggesting what is previously 
known of the class for verification in the object before 
us ; the third figure forms general terms ; it subdivides 
more abstract and vague classes by adding new charac- 



XXVI CONTEXTS. 

teristics which further determine the single general 
class into new sub-classes; the syllogism is the form of 
all self -activity. 

CHAPTER XXXI —Objectivity 378 

The subject is its own object in self-activity; Platonic 
thought of the Logos the clew to Hegel's doctrine of 
objectivity: St. Athanasius and contemporaries on the 
relation of the Logos to creation of the world ; the pro- 
cessio ; Dante and St. Thomas on the processio ; Hegel's 
mistake of the processio for the Logos; St. Anselm's 
proof of the existence of God ; the totality as both ob- 
jective and subjective; we cannot have an idea with- 
out thinking it in relation to its complement, the resi- 
due of being, and the total of these two or the abso- 
lute; mechanism as the lowest form of objectivity; ex- 
plained as the duality of self-determination with its 
unity omitted ; space and time ; gravitation and revo- 
lution about a centre the first appearance of the unity 
implied ; chemism, as meaning the mutual relation of 
contrasted elements, reveals the unity in the form of 
blind affinity; but teleology reveals the unity as pur 
pose or end, as ideal totality. 

CHAPTER XXXTL— The Idea as Personality 390 

The objective that is also subjective is living individ- 
ual being — plants, animals, men; the union of sub- 
jectivity and objectivity in the individual is called 
idea by Hegel; its lowest, immediate, form is life; its 
higher form is will and intellect; the union of intel- 
lect and will so that self-knowing is the creation of 
another (the Logos) gives us the absolute Idea, the 
final goal of this logic of pure thought; principle, me- 
thod and system; definition, classification, theorem; 
the formal discussion of exposition misleads Hegel's 
disciples as to the nature of his absolute ; quotations 
showing that his absolute is personal being — "free 
subjective self-activity possessing personality ;" the re- 
lation of the Absolute Idea to nature; goodness loves 
to participate or share with others; hence creation; 
the absolute gives existence and freedom to its other 
in the form of nature ; nature a process of evolution of 
spirit; particular spirits unite in the Invisible Church, 
and the spirit of the whole is the absolute personality 
of the absolute institution: criticism on Hegel's view 
of nature as the Logos rather than as the processio of 
the Spirit; why the_ dialectic stops with the absolute 



coste:n t ts. xxvn 

Idea and does not lead also to nature ; it stops because 
the Idea is its own other, perfect subject and perfect 
object; in nature there is neither perfect object nor 
perfect subject to be found; hence there can be no 
fatalism in this theory, although it involves logical 
necessity ; fatalism is ontological necessity or external 
necessity ; the necessity of the absolute to be a person 
and subject-object is only a logical necessity; the 
method of the Absolute Idea to impart its being through 
grace to new individuals unceasingly created, who, 
though they begin to be, yet never cease to be, but are 
immortal. 



THE CATEGORIES OF HEGEL'S LARGE LOGIC. 



BEING. 
QUALITY: (1) Being, naught, Becoming, Beginning, ceasing, 
(refiection-into-itself, form of being.) (2) determinate being, 
reality, negation, somewhat, other, finitude. destination, present 
condition, limit, ought, restraint, infinitude, infinite progress, ideal- 
ity, (3) being-for-itself, beingfor-one, oneness, one and many. 
(atom and the void,) repulsion and attraction. QUANTITY: (1) 
pure quantity, continuous and discrete quantity, (2) limited 
quantity, number, (arithmetical processes), extensive and intensive 
quantity, quantitative infinitude, quantitative progression, (3) quan- 
titative ratio, direct ratio, inverse ratio, ratio of powers. 
MEASURE: (1) specific quantity, specifying measure, the rule, 

(2) real measure, ratio of independent mea'sures. series of measure- 
ratios, elective affinity, nodal line of measure-ratios, (no leap in 
nature), the measureless, (3) becoming of essence, absolute indif- 
ference, [centripetal and centrifugal forces). 

ESSENCE. 

REFLECTION-INTO-SELF: (1) appearance, essential and un- 
essential, positing reflection, external reflection, determining reflec- 
tion. (2) determinations of reflection, identity, distinction, dif- 
ference, antithesis of contraries, (positive and negative quantities), 
contradiction, (principles of contradiction and excluded middle), 

(3) ground, absolute ground, form and essence, form and matter, 
form and content, definite ground, formed ground, (tautological ex- 
planations), real ground, perfect ground, condition, relatively uncon- 
ditioned, absolutely unconditioned, entrance into existence. PHENOM- 
ENON: (1) existence, thing and properties, thin g-in-it self , proper- 
ties, reciprocal influence of things, composition of things out of mat- 
ters, dissolution of things, (2) phenomenon, law, phenomenal and 
noumenal worlds, dissolution of the phenomenon, (3) essential 
relation, whole and parts, (infinite divisibility), force and mani- 
festation, force conditioned by' soliciting force, infinitude of force, 
external and internal. ACTUALITY: (1) the absolute, attributes, 
modes, (Spinoza and Leibnitz), (2) the actuality, contingency, 
possibility, reality and necessity, relative necessity, absolute neces- 
sity, (3) absolute relation, substantiality, causality, action and 
reaction, reciprocal action. 

THE NOTION. 

SUBJECTIVITY: (1) notion, the universal notion, the particular 
notion, the singular notion. (2) judgments, (a) of determinate be- 
ing, positive, negative and infinite judgments, (b) of reflection, singu- 
lar, particular and universal judgments, (c) of necessity, categorical, 
hypothetical and disjunctive judgments, (d) of the notion, assertorical, 
problematic and apodictic judgments. (3) syllogisms, (a) of deter- 
minate being, the first, second, third and fourth figures, (b) of re- 
flection, allhess. induction, analogy, (c) of necessity, categorical, 
hypothetical and disjunctive. 

OBJECTIVITY: (1) mechanism, (a) mechanical object, (b) me- 
chanical process, formed process, real p>rocess, product, (c) absolute 
mechanism, the center, the law, transition, (2) chemism, (a) the chem- 
ical object, (b) the chemical process, (c) the transition, (3) tele- 
ology, (a) the subjective purpose, (b) the means, (c) the realized 
aim. THE IDEA: (1) life, (a) living individual, (b) life process, 
(c) the species, (2) intelligence, (a) the true, analysis, synthesis, 
(definition, classification, theorem,) (b) the good, (3) the absolute 

IDEA - xxviii 






A SELECTION OF BOOKS OX HEGEL'S PHILOS- 
OPHY FOR THE ENGLISH READER, 



The secret of Hegel : Being the Hegelian system in origin, prin- 
ciple, form and matter. By James Hutchison Stirling, M.D., LL.D. 
Two volumes. 

The Logic of Hegel translated from the Encyclopaedia of the 
philosophical sciences, with Prolegomena by William Wallace, 
M.A. 

Lectures on the Philosophy of History by G. W. F. Hegel. Trans- 
lated by J. Sibree, M.A. (Bonn's Library.) 

Hegel. By Edward Caird, LL.D. 

The Science of Thought, a system of Logic. By Charles Carroll 
Everett. 

Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History. An exposition 
by George S. Morris. 

The Nation: The Foundations of civil order and political life in 
the United States. By Elisha Mulford, LL.D. 

The Philosophy of Art: Being the Second part of Hegel's iEsthe- 
tik, in which are unfolded historically the three great fundamental 
phases of the Art-activity of the world. Translated and accom- 
panied with an Introductory essay giving an outline of the entire 
^Esthetik. By William M. Bryant, A.M. (A reprint from the Jour. 
Spec. Philos.) 

Hegel's ^Esthetics. A critical exposition. By John Steinfort 
Kedney, S.T.D. 

The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art. Translated 
from the German, with notes and Prefatory essay, by Bernard 
Bosanquet, M.A. 

From Kant to Hegel. By Andrew Seth, M.A. 

Hegelianism and Personality. By the same author. 

Hegel's Doctrine of Reflection, being a paraphrase and a com- 
mentary interpolated into the text of the second volume of Hegel's 

xxix 



XXX BOOKS ON HEGEl/S PHILOSOPHY. 

larger logic, treating of Essence (Das Wesen). By William T. 
Harris. 

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. A. Translations from 
Hegel's works. 1. The Phenomenology of Spirit, Chapters I., II., 
III., by H. C. Brockmeyer, accompanied with commentary by W. T. 
Harris (Vol. II. of J. S. P.). 2. Hegel's Propadeutik, translated, with 
commentary, by W. T. Harris : contains outlines of Phenomenology, 
Logic, science of Eights, Morals and Religion (Vols. III., IV.). 3. 
Hegel's History of Philosophy; portions relating to Plato and Aris- 
totle by "W. T. Harris (Vols. IV., V.) ; portions on Jacob Boehme 
(Vol. XIII.) and Giordano Bruno (Vol. XX.) by Edwin D. Mead. 
4. Hegel's Philosophy of Religion ; entire third part on Christianity 
translated by F. L. Soldan, LL.D. (Vols. XV., XVL, XVII.) ; also, 
Hegel's Introduction entire, translated by same (Vols. XVIII. , XIX., 
XX., XXL) 5. Hegel's ^Esthetics; entire second part translated by 
Sue A. Longwell (Vols. V., VI., VII.) and Wm. M. Bryant (Vols. 
XL, XII., XIII.) . 6. Hegel's Philosophy of the State (Encyclopae- 
dia), translated by E. D. Mead. B. Translations of Commentators 
and Disciples of Hegel. 1. Charles Benard, Analytical and critical 
essay on Hegel's ^Esthetics, translated by James A. Martling (Vols. 
I., II., in.). 2. Karl Rosenkranz, Hegel as German national phil- 
osopher; one half of entire work translated by G. Stanley Hall 
(Vols. VI., VIL, VIIL, XL). 3. Karl Rosenkranz, Pedagogics as 
System; entire work translated by Anna C. Brackett (Vols. VI., 
VIL, VIIL). 4. Karl Rosenkranz, Introduction to the small Ency- 
clopaedia, translated by Thomas Davidson (Vol. V.). 5. Adolf 
Trendelenburg, Critique of Hegel's Logic, translated by Thomas 
Davidson (Vols. V., VI.); Rejoinders to this by A. Vera (Vol. VIL), 
and by W. T. Harris (Vol. IX.). 6. C. F. Goeschel, Immortality of 
the Soul, translated by S. E. Blow (Vols. XVIL, XVHL, XIX., XX.) 
C. Original articles expository of Hegel. 1. J. H. Stirling, The Phil- 
osophy of Law (Vols. VI., VIL, VIIL). 2. W. T. Harris on Hegel's 
philosophic method (Vol. VIIL) ; On Hegel's alleged Pantheism 
(Vol. IX.) ; On Hegel and Kant (Vol. XV.) ; The Dialectic (Vol. XL); 
The Dialectic method regressive (Vol. XIII.) ; On the Philosophy of 
Religion (Vol. XV.) ; On the ontological Proof of God (Vol. XV.) ; 
On Hegel's four Paradoxes (Vol. XVL) ; Philosophy in outline (Vol. 
XVIL) ; Pantheism and Modern Science (Vol. XIX.). 3. R. A. Hol- 
land, Immortality, Atom and the void (Vol. XIX.) ; Agnosticism and 
Religion (Vol. XVL). 4. G. H. Howison, Hume and Kant, Is modern 
Science pantheistic (Vol. XIX.); Recent German Philosophy; 
Prospects of German Philosophy (Vol. XVIL). 5. D. J. Snider's 
Shakespeare's Dramas (Vols. VL, VIL, VIIL, IX., X., XL, also pub- 
lished in separate volumes) ; Homer's Iliad (Vols. XVIIL, XXL, 
XXII, also separate volumes). 







HEGEL'S LOGIC. 



CHAPTER I. 

PHILOSOPHY AXD ITS PROBLEM. 

PHILOSOPHY attempts to explain the facts 
and events in the world by referring them 
all to one first principle. In this respect it is 
easy to distinguish philosophy from any of the sci- 
ences as well as from literature and religion. A 
particular science undertakes to combine facts and 
events by the aid of a subordinate principle into a 
system, in such a manner that each fact or event 
throws light on all the rest and is itself in turn 
explained by every other fact or event. Observa- 
tion, investigation, reflection, discover principles 
and construct scientific systems. In respect to 
the function of explaining each by all through a 
principle, the sciences agree with philosophy. 
But although they have this important function in 
common with it, still they are not philosophy, nor 
even parts or divisions of it. But when the scien- 
tific man stops at some one principle, which he has 
discovered or generalized, and undertakes to explain 
all things by means of this principle, he becomes a 
philosopher. The philosopher, however, is not 

1 



2 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

the only one who deals with first principles. Lit- 
erary art and religion both have to do with the 
survey of the world as a whole. They deal with 
the convictions of men that relate to the origin 
and destiny of man and nature, especially as regu- 
lative of the affairs of human life. 

Poetry and the drama, especially, in offering to 
man their pictures of human life, find their chief 
function in delineating the collisions of the indi- 
vidual with the system of the universe and his con- 
sequent discomfiture. Thus in a negative way a 
revelation of the true first principle is made. The 
strivings and endeavors of human beings in ac- 
cordance with their natural appetites and desires 
are proved to be futile unless regulated by the 
laws that govern the universe and unless subordin- 
ated into harmony with it. 

The revelation of man's nature in art and liter- 
ature, in so far as it shows its relation to this 
supreme principle, is thus akin to philosophy. 

Eeligion occupies itself especially with the reve- 
lation of the absolute principle, and unfolds the 
purpose of the world and the ideal goal of man 
primarily with the practical end in view of guid- 
ing and directing human life. Art and literature 
do not betray a practical aim or purpose, but con- 
ceal it under the aesthetic form addressed to man's 
sense-perception. Human nature loves to cele- 
brate the deepest experiences of its life in the 
forms of art and literature. These experiences 
concern the relation of its deeds to the ethical 
ideal and in a work of art man beholds his own 






PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PKOBLEM. 3 

possibilities for good or evil realized in ideal per- 
sonages, and rejoices in reaping the results of ex- 
perience without the penalties of acting out his 
problems in his own person. 

While religion reveals in a more direct and seri- 
ous manner the nature of the infinite principle 
and its relation to man, yet it does not respect the 
personal freedom of men so much as art or philos- 
ophy does. It insists on devotion and sacrifice, 
both real and ceremonial. It presents dogmati- 
cally the conviction to which the aggregate exper- 
ience of the race or people has arrived and insists 
on its unconditional adoption by the individual as 
supreme authority. The immature soul — and 
what soul is not immature ? — shall be aided and 
strengthened by the experience of the race ; such 
is the positive significance of religion. The indi- 
vidual shall be helped to see the world as nearly as 
possible through the theoretical view elaborated by 
the wisest of all ages, and he shall have his course 
marked out for him so that he may walk in har- 
mony with the revealed highest principle of the 
universe. So much stress is laid on the necessity 
of obedience to this authoritative form that relig- 
ion does not in the most direct way develop the 
self-activity of the individual. 

In art and literature the spectator is left free. 
The application of ethical principles is made upon 
some one else and not on himself. Moreover, that 
person is an ideal one and not one's neighbor. 
Here is no personal limitation and no unpleasant 
application demanding obedience and self-sacrifice. 



4 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

Again, in philosophy an appeal is made to the in- 
tellect. The view of the world shall justify itself 
to the free individual thinking. There shall be 
no imposition of doctrine by weight of external 
authority, but each shall find in his own reason 
the necessary ground of the universe and the justi- 
fication for practical doctrines based on his knowl- 
edge of it. 

With substantial grounds of agreement like 
these, and equally important differences of form, 
philosophy, art and religion perform their several 
functions in the life of man. Each age, each 
nation has its problems peculiar to itself. Sup- 
posing the first principle of the world, invoked to 
explain the contradictory elements of a nation's 
life, to be the same identical principle discovered 
by all nations and times, it follows that there still 
would result different systems of philosophy owing 
to the difference in the conditions of the problems 
needing solution. And yet the common element 
in all human nature makes it possible to announce 
in a general way the permanent conditions of the 
problem that philosophy is called upon to solve. 

The enigma of the world is the existence of evil 
or imperfection. Objects reveal ideals which they 
do not attain. Moreover, to the deeper glance 
even the relative perfection of finite things is im- 
perfection. If good in their kind, yet their kind 
is bad. 

And yet the world is one whole and ob- 
viously under the sway of one principle : time 
and space impose one system of constitutive laws 






PHILOSOPHY AID ITS PROBLEM. 5 

on the whole. If that principle is perfect, how 
can it originate or suffer to exist that which does 
not correspond to its perfection ? How can the 
perfect bring into being and sustain the im- 
perfect ? 

There is one solution that suggests itself to the 
first reflection of man. All this imperfection, all 
this evil, is an illusion ; it does not really exist, but 
only seems to exist. Here the primary question 
is solved, but by shifting it to a new ground. 
What is the reason that the world seems to us to be 
full of imperfection? This is the next problem. 
To this human thought has answered : the imper- 
fection of human faculty; man does not see reality, 
but only a dream, fabricated by his own constitu- 
tion. 

But this solution changes the problem back 
again to its pristine form. The first solution said 
that imperfection was not real, but only seeming. 
Now it is said that this seeming imperfection is 
caused by real imperfection in human faculty. 
There can be no illusion except as it exists for a 
real being. An illusion cannot exist for what is 
itself already an illusion. This second solution, 
which is that of the East Indian thought, has 
another form : it is suggested, namely, that evil 
does not really exist, but only seems to exist to us 
because we see the world in parts only, and do not 
have a vision of it as a whole. This is rather a 
further specification of the former solution than a 
new one. It is still admitted that there is imper- 
fection, namely, immaturity on the part of the 



6 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

souls who are contemplating the world. It is inti- 
mated, however, that a development or growth of 
these souls, so as to perfect their vision of the 
whole, would remove both the seeming and the real 
imperfection. 

This hope of a growth out of imperfection by 
means of spiritual development of some kind is a 
great advance over the first form of the solution. 
It held that evil was an illusion (Maya), but one 
inherent in conscious beings like men. Conscious- 
ness, or self-knowledge, being a radical dualism in 
the self, not only made the universe seem full of 
dualism or multiplicity, but also made the self im- 
perfect by destroying its oneness, and thereby 
alienating it from true being. Only the loss of a^l 
consciousness and the loss of all individuality is 
the true salvation of the soul, according to that 
view. 

The salvation by growth in insight seems to the 
Euroj)ean mind to be a far higher solution than 
the salvation by lapse out of consciousness pro- 
posed by the Hindoo* mind. 

There can be no growth or development of the 
soul, that can solve its problems, if the very exist- 
ence of the soul itself, its consciousness, is radically 
evil. But the Hindoo solution, radical as it is, 
does not solve its own problem. How did the one 
undivided, unconscious, pure being give exist- 
ence to souls, which attain to consciousness and 

*Even Kapila's intellectual solution carried the thinking of prin- 
ciples up to the " conclusive, incontrovertible, one only knowledge, 
that neither I am nor is aught mine nor do I exist." 



PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PKOBLEM. 7 

thus acquire the disease of individuality? The 
problem which stimulated the mind to its solution 
is left at the end entire as at the beginning. For 
how can there arise and be sustained any imperfect 
beings in a world which is created and ruled by a 
perfect being? Granting that there is illusion, 
the Hindoo sage comes to the stubborn fact that 
the source of illusion is a reality ; he traces it to 
consciousness in which being is divided into subject 
which knows and an object which is known ; thus 
consciousness introduces difference or distinction 
into a being that should be one, without distinc- 
tions. With this result, imperfection is traced 
back to its lowest terms, and remains there, coupled 
with the religious duty of seeking self-annihilation. 
Thus the solution of the theory of illusion proves 
itself an illusion. 

Turning to the other form of solution through 
growth, we see that the problem has not been dis- 
posed of, but only postponed. That the world 
seems imperfect because of the imperfection of the 
vision of the immature souls, but that growth in 
insight will remove the seeming imperfection of 
the world, and likewise remove the real imperfec- 
tion of the seeing souls — this places our problem 
on a new ground. We have now to explain how 
there can be a world of imperfect souls who are 
endowed with the capacity to develop towards per- 
fection. How can a perfect being originate and 
sustain a world of imperfect beings endowed with 
capacity to develop towards perfection, and like- 
wise with the capacity to resist such development? 



8 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

In this statement of the problem we may recog- 
nize its general outlines as presented by the thought 
of Western Asia. The Aryan Persian undertakes 
the first solution of this problem. There are two 
antagonistic mights in the first principle of the 
Universe ; two substantial beings which divide the 
allegiance of the finite creatures of the world. 
Here finitude is explained by presupposing finitude 
in the first principle. Good is reciprocally limited 
by Evil. This gives substantiality to difference 
and distinction, and, consequently, responsibility 
to finite human beings. The conception of choice 
becomes very clear, and man, as a choosing being, 
is at the height of his reality. In consciousness 
alone he attains clearness of discrimination of the 
good from the evil, and hence consciousness is es- 
sential to true being. The Persian principle makes 
man's attributes of will and intellect radically real 
and conducive to reality and perfection. Once let 
him become perfect will and perfect intellect, and 
man shall become divine, and yet preserve his in- 
dividuality. 

But all this is obtained in theory for man only 
by destroying the perfection of the first principle 
and making it dual and in perpetual conflict with 
itself. Neither element of the first principle is 
independent ; each is determined in his activity 
by the existence and actions of his adversary. 
Each is dependent. But such a thought of mu- 
tual dependence implies and demands again a 
higher unity which is indifferent to the limits of 
the two mutually dependent principles and with 



PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROBLEM. 9 

such higher unity the Persian theory would go 
back to the basis of the Hindoo pantheism. 

In Egypt this solution conceives that the good 
principle Osiris is overcome and killed by the evil 
principle Typhon, just as man is overcome by 
death. But the good survives and rules supreme 
in the next world. A way is provided for his hu- 
man followers to purify their lives and dwell with 
Osiris after death. This is a further development 
of the Persian view and in it the divine is made 
more human. 

The solution of this problem of accounting 
for a world of imperfect beings takes another 
shape with the Greeks. There the personal ele- 
ment of the divinity is intensified still more. 
Beauty is conceived as the supreme principle of 
the world. Immortality in the body renders this 
possible. The circle of Olympic deities is a re- 
flection of the earthly life with its limitations of 
old age, disease, and death removed. Men are 
taught to become divine by training their bodies 
into gracefulness and perfect form. In this there 
is a still further departure from the conception of 
abstract being as the first principle. On this 
standpoint philosophy becomes possible. Plato 
conceives an absolute divine Goodness who wishes, 
"because he is without envy,"to share his blessed- 
ness with others and hence creates a world and en- 
dows it with perfection as a whole, but permits 
finite beings to "participate" in the divine and to 
increase or diminish in this power. His doctrine 
wavers between the oriental doctrine of lapse from 



10 hegel's logic. 

the divine perfect into the imperfect by sin, and 
the new doctrine inherent in his idea of the abso- 
lute good which would favor the development from 
the particular and partial into the universal and 
total. Aristotle conceives the first principle as 
reason (Novs), and finds the world to be a movement 
from the less perfect towards the more perfect, all 
being directed towards an end, namely, perfect be- 
ing or reason. Nature, moved by the principle of 
final cause, develops towards an ever increasing 
subjection of matter (i. e. undeveloped possibility) 
to form (i. e. completely realized possibility — per- 
fect form being pure self -activity or Eeason). Ac- 
cording to this solution of the problem of the 
world the divine reason is self -knowing and crea- 
tive. It creates a world of developing beings rising 
in a scale out of the imperfect towards the perfect 
and thus it sees its own energy reflected in the 
world. The making valid of the good or the per- 
fect requires as condition of its manifestations the 
not-good, the imperfect, which is changed into a 
progressive realization of the good by the inflowing 
of the divine energy. The Divine contemplates in 
this triumph of its principle over its opposite the 
spectacle of its own perfection thus actively mak- 
ing itself valid. In the world it beholds a contin- 
ual increase of substantial beings (self-conscious 
rational souls) arising out of pure chaos (vXtf or 
matter is the entirely unformed, the merely possi- 
ble, and hence nothing real), coming from nothing 
into being, and ascending into perfect rational 
beings. In this spectacle of the world-process 



PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PKOBLEM. 11 

of creating innumerable souls out of nothing (or 
mere possibility) and endowing them with growing- 
capacity for his own divine nature, Aristotle finds 
an object worthy of the first principle of the uni- 
verse and thus solves the sphinx enigma of the 
existence of the imperfect. It does not exist abso- 
lutely, but is in a process of becoming perfect. 

Christian thought explored this problem and 
its solutions more profoundly. Greek philosophy 
is certainly on the right track. But it has not un- 
folded all of its insights and grasped them together. 
There lingers about it still the oriental conception 
of a lapse or fall from perfection as the origin of 
all imperfection, both of conscious and unconscious 
nature. At this period the Greek and Eoman 
nationalities have extended themselves over west- 
ern Asia and have taken up the oriental views of 
the world as problems to be explained by western 
philosophy. Particular attention is given by the 
thinkers at Alexandria to the doctrine of the form- 
lessness of the first principle. It is involved in the 
Greek principle and especially in Aristotle's con- 
ception of the divine Eeason (Novt) that the lat- 
ter as self-knowing is both subject and object, and 
hence that it contains distinction and determinate- 
ness within itself, while the East Indian Brahma is 
pure empty identity. The self-consciousness of the 
divine being involves his distinction into subject 
and object. He exists for himself as object. Here, 
apparently, we have found the divine Logos that 
Platonism called " only-begotten." But is this 
the cosmos ? Is this Aristotle's world that reflects 






12 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

the divine perfection in an eternal process — the 
victory of perfection over the imperfect ? By 
degrees the thinkers of that epoch see that a 
negative answer must be given to this question. 
There is a new problem here. How can the divine 
self-conscious Eeason know himself as a progressive 
development of the imperfect ? Impossible. The 
All-Perfect must know himself as perfect, and if 
this perfect object is the Logos or "Word/' then 
it must be perfect and have been perfect from all 
eternity. But stilly though eternally perfect it must 
have been "begotten," or derived from the activity 
of the divine self-consciousness which has always 
known itself or been self-conscious. 

Contemplating this problem, Christian thought 
discovered that another logical step was required 
in the solution of the problem — a step partly im- 
plied in their statements, and partly divined even 
by Plato and Aristotle. The primal reason distin- 
guishing itself in consciousness, generates from all 
eternity a Logos in every respect like himself. His 
knowing and willing are the same (Aquinas, Sum- 
ma Theol. I, q. XXVII, art. iii : " In Deo sit 
idem voluntas et intellectus " ) ; which means that 
God, in knowing, causes the object of his knowl- 
edge to exist; for it is an imperfect knowing which 
knows only unreal fancies or that knows one thing 
and wills another. The Logos is possessed of the 
same perfection as the First Principle, and hence is 
self-conscious and his knowing is likewise creative, 
so that there is a third perfect Eeason. But here 
comes in the special insight of Christian thought, 



PHILOSOPHY A^D ITS PROBLEM. 13 

The Logos in his self-knowing not only knows 
himself as present perfection, but also knows him- 
self as generated or derived, though in infinite past 
time. This is essential to his self-knowledge. This 
is his recognition of the First Principle as his 
unbegotten "Father." But whatever he knows 
in his self-consciousness he creates or makes to 
exist. Hence he not only originates a third per- 
fect Being, but makes at the same time a "Pro- 
cession w out of imperfection, a really existent Pro- 
cession which is always going on in all its stages, 
but has always been complete. The contempla- 
tion of a genesis or generation out of the non-being 
of the divine Reason into the perfection of the 
same involves the thought of pure space, pure 
time, matter, motion, worlds and all stages of or- 
ganic being — a process of evolution so complete 
that all degrees of unreason as well as all degrees 
of reason appear. But the unreason only appears 
as the matter or material upon which the divine 
Reason works creatively transmuting it into reason. 
The last step of nature is a self-active being who 
possesses the capacity to grow individually into the 
divine Image. He has the potentiality of all self- 
activity, but is at first only this possibility. He 
must actualize this possibility. 

But to consider further this Third divine 
Reason who has eternally proceeded (rather than 
been generated) : does not the Third make an object 
of Himself and thus cause a Fourth, who in turn 
originates a fifth, and so on in infinite progres- 
sion ? Christian thought had this difficult point 



14 



to solve in order to make its solution complete 
or even possible. It comprehends the procession 
as the eternal return of the imperfect towards the 
perfect. The perfect is not reached in the single 
individual,, but in the union of men in a divine 
churchy a community of the faithful (a £i holy 
city, the New Jerusalem, a bride adorned for her 
husband " ), all united in the principle of divine 
charity (the missionary spirit), that causes each 
individual to devote his whole self to the highest 
welfare of his fellow men, not' only in this life, but 
in an infinite future life. Such an institution as 
the " invisible church" is an infinitely perfect in- 
stitution, and as all institutions have, in a certain 
sense, a personality which transcends the person- 
ality of the individuals who compose the institu- 
tion, so the perfect institution has a perfect per- 
sonality (the Holy Spirit). As every institution 
collects power from each of its members, and en- 
dows each with the power of all, so the perfect in- 
stitution endows each with its infinity and perfec- 
tion, and makes possible a divine life to each man 
in a sense utterly impossible to man as a mere in- 
dividual. Inasmuch as the third divine Person 
has proceeded from all eternity, is proceeding and 
will proceed through all eternity, His institution 
(the "city" of which He is the spirit) includes the 
souls that have ascended from an infinite series of 
worlds. There is a perpetual stream of newly cre- 
ated souls ascending into it from all inhabited 
worlds. The souls have one and all the vocation 
of helping all in need of help to gain knowledge 



PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROBLEM. 15 

and wisdom and goodness. The condition of all 
is a state of divine charity which gives to all and 
receives from all. What each gives is I " but 
what each receives is infinite. The mutr 
ation of intellects and of wills makes thib ne in- 
stitution whose spirit is a perfect persona 
reflects perfectly the personality of the J : 
Second divine Personalities. The differences are 
preserved in this First Principle of First Principles. 
The First is not begotten nor has He proceeded; 
the Second is begotten, but has not proceeded; the 
Third has proceeded, but is not begotten. The 
personality that has proceeded differs from the 
First and Second in that He thinks with the aggre- 
gate intellects of the infinite invisible church, and 
wills with the wills of the same. The thinking 
and willing of this Third Person are perfectly dis- 
tinguishable from the thinking and willing of the 
individual members of the invisible church nev- 
ertheless ; because each individual mediates his 
thinking and willing through the thinking and 
willing of his fellow men, as a condition of belong- 
ing to that invisible church. The will of a nation 
is always distinguishable from that of its individ- 
ual citizens, or even from its rulers, no matter how 
absolute they are. For even the absolute ruler 
mediates his own experience of knowledge and 
will through that of others, and must do this in 
order to rule even himself, to say nothing of other 
men. 

To what a singular doctrine our reflections on 
the constant problem of philosophy have led us^. 



16 KEGEI/S LOGIC. 

The chief ideas that have ruled the civilizations of 
the world, Asiatic as well as European, are found 
in contemplating the phases of this problem. The 
solution I have called "Christian" is of course 
barely sketched above. Its essential feature is the 
explanation of the actual existence of imperfect 
sings in a world created by a perfect being, 
.rough the self-knowledge of a derived Logos 
» ^o contemplates his derivation and thereby con- 
verts an eternally past and completed derivation 
into a present derivation (actually going on) or 
world of evolution containing beings in all stages 
of imperfection, but all existing in a process of 
elimination of imperfection and of realizing j>er- 
fection. Since perfection is absolute reason, pure 
self-activity, imperfection must be its opposite or 
pure passivity, or any form of existence in and 
through something else. Thus mechanical or in- 
organic existence is less perfect than the humblest 
form of organic life; for life has some degree of 
self-activity.. 

Keligion is the first form of human thought that 
grapples with this great problem of problems. By 
a semi-instinctive, semi-conscious form of thought, 
reached through a sort of institutional thinking 
rather than by the independent thought of indi- 
viduals, it proposes its several solutions and gives 
them ceremonial forms and intellectual confes- 
sions of faith, which it imposes with authority on 
entire peoples irrespective of national or political 
limits. 

The systems of philosophy that prevail are in- 






PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROBLEM. 17 

dependent attempts on the part of individuals to 
grasp the ideas of their civilization. 

These ideas are to be fonnd in the religions con- 
sciousness of the people, and it is the province of 
philosophy to see their theoretical necessity. Usu- 
ally, therefore, the system of an individual falls 
far short of the depth of the unconscious idea or- 
ganized in a civilization. 

When we say "individual attempts/' we must 
not take this strictly. Philosophy is far from an 
individual product except when comparing it with 
religion. The philosopher takes his problem in the 
special form in which his age delivers it to him. 
^Moreover, he is stimulated to his solution by the 
solutions of predecessors and contemporaries. Just 
as natural science progresses by the accumulation 
of observation and reflection, so philosophy, too, 
progresses by combining the results of human 
speculation. In science each observer sees nature 
through the eyes of all preceding observers, and 
makes use of their reflection in classification and 
explanation. In philosophy each thinker refines 
on the systems of those who have gone before, and 
uses contemporary thought to assist his own defi- 
nitions. 

The test of any system of philosophy is the ac- 
count it gives of the institutions of civilization. 
What does it see in human history and the institu- 
tions of the family, civil society, the state, the 
church ? If its word is only negative and it finds 
no revelation of divine reason in these, but only 
fetters and trammels to individual freedom, then 



18 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

it belongs to the crudities of the youthful period 
of reflection which has to make its beginning by a 
declaration of independence. The utter emptiness 
of such formal "free thought," as it calls itself, 
is obvious to itself as soon as it leaves off its work 
of denying what it finds already current in the 
world and attempts seriously to reconstruct a rea- 
sonable substitute for what it condemns. We re- 
spect this negative independence as a necessary 
epoch in one^s culture. It is not philosophy, how- 
ever, but only the indispensable preliminary to it, 
and should be outgrown as soon as possible. True 
independence grows with the insight into the 
truth. That which was external authority be- 
comes freedom when one discovers its identity with 
his own inborn rationality. 

These reflections serve to introduce us to the 
philosophy of Hegel, who is preeminently the 
thinker that explains and justifies institutions. 
He grasps the problem of life in the wide sense 
which I have indicated, as the fundamental ques- 
tion to which the religious ideas underlying civili- 
zation furnish practical solutions. He asks : 
(e What is nature ? What is man ? What, in brief, 
is the world ? " And reports the answer which he 
finds' written alike upon masses and atoms, upon 
the individual and upon society : The world is 
the process of the evolution and perfection of im- 
mortal souls; the history of the human race exhib- 
its the progress of souls into the consciousness of 
freedom; the philosophy and history of art show 
us how each people has succeeded in realizing for 



PHILOSOPHY AKD ITS PROBLEM. 19 

itself in sensuous forms the ideals of its civiliza- 
tion; the philosophy and history of religion is an 
account of the dogmas and ceremonial forms in 
which each people has celebrated its solution of 
the deepest problem, that of the origin and destiny 
of imperfect finite beings; the philosophy and his- 
tory of jurisprudence and political constitutions is 
an exposition of the devices invented by nations 
to secure freedom to the individual by the return 
of his deed upon him, and these devices are a series 
of statutory and fundamental laws, progressing 
from the form of absolute despotism and slavery 
up to the constitutional form of government that 
defines the law for the governing class as well as 
the governed class; the history of philosophy shows 
us the extent to which each people in the persons 
of its deepest thinkers has become conscious of the 
elements of its problems and their solution; logic 
is the science of the principles, method, and sys- 
tem of what is universal and necessary in thought, 
and it unfolds or defines and criticises all the ele- 
ments of thought, from the simplest, shallowest 
and most rudimental up to the richest, most com- 
prehensive and luminous idea to which philosophy 
has attained. 

Inasmuch as "logic" in Hegel's system holds 
this central place of unfolding the method and 
principles of all thought, it is much more compre- 
hensive than the "formal logic" handed down to 
us from Aristotle, as we shall see. While the for- 
mal logic attempts only to show the laws of the 
judgment and the syllogism in which all knowl- 



20 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

edge is set forth or expressed, the Hegelian logic 
undertakes to show the genesis, and indeed the 
complete biography of every ultimate "notion" — 
concept or idea — which is used or can be used 
in judgments or syllogisms to collect or analyze 
or explain the contents of experience. It has, 
therefore, to discuss the forms in which existence 
is possible, actual, or necessary, and is ontology or 
metaphysic as well as logic. 

Everything known or thought or expressed in 
language, is known or thought by means of no- 
tions, ideas, or concepts, and explained by the aid 
of words that stand for these general predicates or 
categories. Some of these general predicates are 
generalized from experience, while others are fur- 
nished by the mind itself as the a priori condi- 
tions necessary to all experience. These a priori 
thought-forms which Kant calls forms of the mind, 
and which he proves to be not derived from con- 
tingent experience in as much as they are neces- 
sary for the very beginning of such experience, are 
called notions of "pure thought," because they 
are pure or free from all elements derived from 
contingent experience. To investigate these pure 
thought-notions is to investigate the laws of exis- 
tence as it is known or knowable in experience. 
We cannot know or conceive of existence as possi- 
ble in any other modes than by these a priori 
notions of our mind. Hence we cannot call them 
"subjective," as Kant did, and deny their validity 
as laws of all being without contradicting our- 
selves by setting up at the same time other notions 



PHILOSOPHY ASTD ITS PROBLEM. 21 

or thoughts which transcend these "categories." 
Kant, for example, used the notion "thing-in-it- 
self " as transcending the application of the cate- 
gories. But in so doing he implied that he 
possessed a standpoint to which the categories as 
well as the intuitions of time and space were 
merely subjective. 

Since the relation of Hegel to Kant and his fol- 
lowers, as well as to ancient and medieval philos- 
ophy, requires a more detailed treatment, we shall 
continue this introduction, discussing in another 
chapter the relation of German philosophy to the 
Greek philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and the 
Schoolmen, showing Hegel's significance as the 
thinker who unites and reconciles the two great 
movements of thought, and afterwards tracing in 
other chapters Hegel's "voyage of discovery" 
from the Kantian standpoint to that of the Greek. 



CHAPTEE IL 

THE GREEK AND GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL PRIN- 
CIPLES. 



THE significance of Hegel in the History of 
Philosophy is to be found in the fact that he 
unites in one system the Aristotelian and Kantian 
movements in thought. Aristotle had long ago 
discovered the principle of absolute truth, and had 
made application of that principle in the explana- 
tion of the two worlds (nature and man) as those 
worlds appeared at the epoch in which he lived. 
His principle as found in his Metaphysics (or, 
as he called it, 7tpojr?j qn\o6o(pia, 11, 7), is that 
of absolute cognition and life, G-od as the per- 
fect living being, whose cognition is that high 
form of knowing by wholes or totalities — "the 
knowing of all things in their causes," the knowing 
of the entirety of relations of a thing in its cause. 
He calls this highest activity of mind QeGDpeiv, 
theoretical knowing, or speculative knowing (the 
Latin translation of the word being speculare). In 
his De Anima he calls this highest principle active 
Eeason {vovs TtoirjTiHos) to distinguish it from 
lower forms of mind found in the human soul. 

This conception of the absolute first principle of 
the world, thus identified by Aristotle with the 
human soul as being the perfect reality of what the 



22 



THE GREEK AND GERMAN" PRINCIPLES. 23 

human soul is potentially,, makes the destiny of 
man an eternal one, and makes the soul more 
substantial than any object in the world of nature 
in time and space. 

Such a philosophical view was especially adapted 
to interpret the deep insights of the Christian dog- 
mas, and St. Thomas Aquinas completed Christian 
theology by founding it on Aristotle's system. 

The Greek movement in philosophy culminated 
in finding the absolute form, which Plato calls the 
Idea. The Idea means a universal that is self- 
active — what Aristotle calls energy or formative 
process. It is self-determination, and not a mere 
external shape given to something. Although Aris- 
totle seems to polemicize against Plato's Ideas, yet 
he holds substantially the same view of ultimate, 
true being, and names it, as we have seen, God, 
Active Reason, and pure speculative knowing. 
That this is meant for a personal Reason, we may 
know from the fact that Aristotle calls it self-know- 
ing Reason (vorftiit vor)deGos), though there was no 
single Greek word meaning consciousness at the 
time he wrote. . 

The procedure by which this absolute form is 
found is wholly objective, in the sense that Greek 
philosophy always investigates the objective coeffi- 
cient of knowledge — what necessarily is, rather 
than how we know it, the subjective coefficient of 
knowledge. 

Modern philosophy is occupied chiefly with the 
problem of certitude — the how we know it— the 
subjective coefficient. But when modern philoso- 



24 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

phy has taken a complete inventory of the forms of 
subjective Mind it discovers that pure reason— abso- 
lute subjectivity — is the form that must necessarily 
be the highest principle of objective being. Just 
so, religion finds the world to be a lower order of 
being, compared with its Creator. The Creator is 
absolute mind and the true objective reality, while 
nature is dependent being or phenomenal. Fichte 
and Schelling call this absolute form "subject-ob- 
jectivity," that is to say, that-which-is-its-own-ob- 
ject, or subject and object of itself. This is the 
form of self-knowing or self-consciousness. This 
is true individuality, true being. Without self- 
consciousness it could have no individuality, be- 
cause its changes in time, and its parts separated 
in space, would have nothing internal to unite 
them. Self-consciousness is a unity under change 
and separation. The unity of space or time is only 
external. 

Kant showed that these subjective "forms of the 
mind" make possible all knowing which knows 
universals or generalities. To generalize is simply 
to ignore the multiplicity of objects and give atten- 
tion to the form of mental activity that knows 
those objects. Fichte completed the exposition of 
the deduction of the subjective forms which the 
mind regards as the necessary conditions of the ex- 
istence of things. Schelling further perceived that 
objectivity is just as valid a predicate to these uni- 
versal forms as subjectivity is or can be. In fact, 
Kant had grounded his doctrine of the subjectiv- 
ity of those forms (time, space, quantity, quality, 



THE GREEK AND GERMAN" PRINCIPLES. 25 

relation, mode) on the very circumstance that 
these forms are seen by the mind to be the logical 
conditions of the existence of things in the world. 

Hegel discovers the identity of this result with 
the results of Aristotle. The subjective philosoph- 
ical movement ends in the same way as the object- 
ive movement. The psychological movement comes 
to the same conclusion as the ontological. The 
modern method has arrived at the principle of ab- 
solute form — that is to say, the form of conscious- 
ness, that which is its own object — as the highest 
principle. This is the same result that Aristotle 
reached — a "knowing of knowing," a self-cogni- 
tive reason, a pure, self-conscious essence, God. 
The methods differ, but the results are the same. 
The Christian dogma of the union of the divine 
and human natures in the person of Christ points 
to this principle. The absolute is not formless like 
Brahma (who may be called pure being but is bet- 
ter named pure naught), but is pure form, or self- 
conscious being. It is purely universal and purely 
individual at the same time. 

Beings that possess the form of self-conscious- 
ness, therefore, are already in the form of the 
highest principle, and are its incarnations. They 
may forever approach the absolute by realizing this 
ideal within themselves through their own free 
activity. 

The subjective tendency of thought which has 
been called the characteristic of modern times, 
leads to a peculiar skepticism, a skepticism based 
On partial insight into method. Method is the 



26 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

form of activity. The modern tendency seeks to 
know the form of the mind's activity. All facul- 
ties of mind exist only as active. Hence the prob- 
lem of certitude arises only when the mind is 
directed inward on its own method of activity. If 
the insight into method is partial, it cannot be 
sure of the results of mental activity. All wrong 
views of method lead to wrong philosophical 
views. 

From this point of view we could define the work 
of Kant as a voyage of discovery into the realm 
of method^ using the term " method " to denote 
the form of all mental activity,, whether of the in- 
tellect or of the will or of the emotional nature. 

When we consider the fact that any glimpse into 
the forms of activity will give a basis for skepticism 
that no amount of objective philosophizing can 
remove, we see at once the significance of that 
philosophy which explores method in its entire 
extent^ and makes a complete inventory of all 
mental activity. The three critiques of Kant — 
those of Pure Reason, the Practical Reason, and of 
Judgment — attempt this vast work. 

This insight into method, which is the problem 
of the modern mind, is the object that Kant suc- 
cessfully pursues. It relates to the opposition be- 
tween the subjective and objective, and essays to 
define what pertains to the ego and constitutes its 
forms, and thereby distinguish from it what per- 
tains to the objective. It regards all cognition as 
composed of two factors, and it investigates the 
subjective coefficient in order to know what to 



THE GEEEK AND GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 27 

deduct from the sum of knowledge to find the 
true remainder. 

The ancient thinking also had two factors to in- 
vestigate in cognition, but it did not regard the one 
as subjective and the other as objective. It defined 
one factor as universal, and the other as particu- 
lar. One was abiding, the other, transient. Hence 
arose the science of formal logic as the chief con- 
tribution on the part of ancient philosophy to the 
world's science. 

The answer to the Greek problem, namely, to 
unite the particular and universal, is found in the 
principle of Causality. Cause, in its four aspects 
of efficient, final, formal and material, is identical 
with "active reason." It is "entelechy." Con- 
scious energy or personality is efficient cause, de- 
sign or purpose, and form-giving cause. And 
it is, moreover, the material (yXrj) or potentiality 
of receiving forms, that is to say, tlie mind makes 
its thoughts out of its own potentiality. 

Ancient skepticism doubted the existence of the 
multifarious objects of the objective world. They 
appeared to be ; but since they existed in a state 
of contradiction, change, or evanescence, they could 
not be said to have substantial existence. The ten 
tropes of the skeptics developed this inconsistency. 
In them we see the beginning of the modern meth- 
od, in that the certitude of the senses is attacked. 
Their attack on method confines itself to the 
method of sense-perception. Hegel points out the 
striking fact that ancient skepticism doubted the 
real existence of objects, while modern skepticism 



28 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

has no doubt of their reality, but questions our 
ability to know them. 

This later form of skepticism, suggested by the 
Neo-Platonist, Porphyry, was openly proclaimed 
by the scholastic Nominalists. It is noteworthy, 
too, that the Scholastics attempted to unite the 
Greek antithesis (universal versus. particular) with 
the modern antithesis (subjective versus objective); 
all universal or general terms are mere names 
{flatus vocis), there is no objective reality corres- 
ponding to them. They are mere subjective de- 
vices (arbitrary aggregates) by which we store up 
the results of our experience. The universal is 
here made subjective, while the particular is made 
objective. 

The war between realism and nominalism has 
this great meaning in the history of philosophy: 
It is the first attempt to assert the subjective basis 
of observation against the objective basis. With 
this distinction the Nominalists attempted to over- 
throw the old distinction between the universal 
and the particular, which tradition had brought 
down to the Middle Ages as the heirloom of specu- 
lative science. 

This accounts also for the great place which 
Aristotle's Be Anima occupied in the controversy. 
The great Arabian commentators held that the 
human mind is essentially passive reason as op- 
posed to the world mind, which is purely active 
reason. Hence man is not immortal as indi- 
vidual human soul. That which differentiates, 
that which makes the individual a distinct en- 



THE GREEK AND GERMAN" PRINCIPLES. 29 

tity, is perishable ; the species lives, but the indi- 
vidual dies. Aristotle had shown how an indi- 
vidual may become an "entelechy," that is to 
say, how a particular being may unite within 
itself the attributes of the universal as a totality. 
His "entelechy" is very nearly equivalent to 
Plato's "Idea." Change and perishability exist 
because the particular is not adequate to the 
universal, that is to say, the universal has many 
particular attributes or phases, while the special 
individual realizes only a few of these phases, and 
the rest are potential, but not real. Let some of 
these potential phases become real, and at the same 
time some of the real ones be annulled or become 
potential, and the individuality is lost. But the 
universal (always in the sense in which Hegel 
understands it) is a self-active process to which all 
the phases belong, and since none are suppressed 
or made merely potential except through its ac- 
tivity and none are realized or made manifest 
except by the same activity, it follows that all its 
changes take place by the activity of its individu- 
ality, and that the individual does not perish 
through change when it is a self -activity (or 
"energy," or "entelechy," as Aristotle called the 
soul). This is the apercu of the immortality of 
the soul which Plato and Aristotle both had, not- 
withstanding all assertions to the contrary based 
on the Arabian commentators, or on the interpre- 
tation of Alexander of Aphrodisias. 

Aristotle's "entelechy" is an individual which 
has realized within itself all the potentialities or 



30 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

phases of the universal so far as to be a process of 
self-activity. Such a process is a process of self- 
identity like the ego, which is a perpetual act, 
always discriminating the me from the not me, 
and always identifying the two by recognizing 
itself. Its changes do not annul it but realize it. 
Its activity is only a continuance of its function, 
it is a circular movement, what Hegel in his pecu- 
liar technical phraseology calls "return to itself." 
Here in fact is the central point of the philoso- 
phy of Hegel as well as of Plato and Aristotle. It 
was the insight into the fact that individuality is 
not a thing (not a molecule or atom) but a process, 
an energy, that led Plato to the doctrine of ideas — 
a doctrine repeated substantially in Leibnitz's doc- 
trine of Monads. Plato saw that change happened 
in a thing because that thing is not a whole of 
reality but is, in part, only a potentiality. The 
realization of its potentialities changes it and de- 
stroys its identity. But such realization of poten- 
tialities only confirms the self-identity of the 
activity. Individuality is an activity therefore. 
When it acts it realizes its potentialities ; — just as 
any force manifests its nature or realizes itself by 
acting. What was in it as potential now aj3pears 
in the form of reality. Individuality is an energy 
which continually acts, and each act is a manifes- 
tation to it of its inner potentiality. Such a being 
whose essence is activity Plato calls Idea (eiSot 
means form and, in Plato and Aristotle, formative 
energy, constructive and destructive). To learn 
how to think it : consider any given thing and 



THE GREEK AND GERMAN PPwIKCIPLES. 31 

its producing cause. Consider all the possibili- 
ties that it may have, and the total complex 
of these makes its idea. All the changes that 
the thing may have are mere realizations or 
manifestations of its idea. Hence any mere 
thing in the world is only a partial manifesta- 
tion of its true self — the true self of anything 
being the idea. The idea is the total of all the 
potentialities of a thing. This doctrine is the 
clew to Hegel's use of Begriff as expressing the 
self-active cause. Hence Plato spoke of things in 
the real world of change as not being fully realized 
ideas but as only having participation (jueOe&s) in 
ideas. But to this thought of the complex of po- 
tentialities we must add that of self-activity (as 
Plato repeats in many places, and especially in The 
Sophist and in the tenth book of The Laws). 
Then the thought is clear. All things in the 
world are fragmentary manifestations of self-active 
individuals or ideas. 

This is Aristotle's view of the world and also 
Hegel's. Hegel calls this self-active being Begriff 
(variously translated notion, conception, idea, 
comprehension, etc. See Chapter XIII. of this 
work). Aristotle calls it entelechy, soul, reason, 
etc. Aristotle refuted the doctrine of ideas as 
held by the Platonic school, probably because 
Plato's followers interpreted it mythologically and 
Aristotle dreaded the consequences of retaining 
a terminology sure to be misunderstood. His 
so-called refutation of the Platonic doctrine of 
ideas does not touch Plato's real doctrine, as 



32 



HEGEI/S LOGIC. 



we may see from the statements in The Laivs, The 
Sophist, and many other dialogues. It contends 
against the mythological view of ideas which 
forms mental pictures of them as things or 
spatial entities, and does not think them as self- 
activities. In great detail and with precise tech- 
nique Aristotle unfolds as his own this thought 
which Plato had reached. His doctrine of matter 
and form, energy and potentiality, explains the 
Platonic doctrine of participation. Matter is 
the as yet unrealized potentiality. Form is the 
realizing energy. Perishable things, according 
to Plato, are mere partial realizations (partici- 
pations) of their ideas. According to Aristotle, 
perishable things are mostly matter (unrealized 
potentiality) and their change is a manifestation 
of their form (eidos meaning total formative 
activity) or entelechy. As in this progressive 
change or realization the steps of the process are 
means of realization, they manifest adaptation 
when looked at with the whole form in view. 
Hence Aristotle laid the greatest stress on final 
cause, design or purpose (the ov evexa). The 
formal cause, too, expresses this ; for it names the 
totality of possibilities as the object or purpose of 
the process of realization or change. Aristotle 
often calls the formal cause the-what-was-to-be 
(to ti r/v Eivai) — the ideal that shapes the process 
and its results. Hence formal cause and final 
cause must be identical and the world-process 
must be a revelation of the lineaments of the pure 
form or pure self -activity that causes it to be and 



THE GKEEK AND GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 33 

to change. Aristotle with this thought in his 
head very consistently looked upon nature as 
worth inventorying. If nature is carefully inven- 
toried all its phases will reveal this Formal Cause 
as the design or purpose of all things and their 
history. The idea of ideas (like Leibnitz^s monad 
of monads) is self-active Reason. * 

Water is either solid or liquid or gaseous, but 
only one of these states at the same time. When 
one is realized the other two states are merely po- 
tential. In Plato's language all three states would 
be called in the aggregate the idea of water, which 
actual water perceptible by the senses never fully 
realizes, but only in successive states — one-third of 
the idea being real at one time. Now conceive 
that the idea of water were an entelechy or indi- 
vidual possessing the power to realize all its states 
at once. Then no farther change would be possi- 
ble because all its potentialities would be already 
real. Change consists in realizing a potentiality 
that is not real already. Of course water is not 
an entelechy ; but it must have one somewhere in 
the universe, and that entelechy doubtless finds 
water and all other material being necessary to ex- 
press all of its potentialities. But in the case of a 
soul like man we have an entelechy already which 

* NovS, whose nature is to Ttoiovv , or, as the commentators 
called it, vov$ iIoi?]tik6z. Be An., Book III, ch. 5. "The 
active reason is creator of all things ,, — too TtdvTOC 7toie7v, 
because the perceptibility of objects proves their origin from a 
rational creator or creative cause— to al'n ov nai rtoirjriKov. 
"The passive reason' 1 — vov$ itahrjTT.Ko^ , "has the power to 
become all things"— ro3 TtavTOt yivedBai, that is to say, to 
perceive what exists. 



34 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

is able to make for itself by its will a second state 
of being through its deeds, and thus change from 
the state of a first entelechy to that of a second 
entelechy — from a state wherein the individual 
has the power to realize itself but has not done so, 
to the state wherein the individual has used the 
power to realize itself. God is eternally a second 
entelechy completely revealing his Infinite power. 
Man is a first entelechy on the way towards becom- 
ing a second entelechy. 

These distinctions in Hegel are expressed by the 
words Beg riff and Idee. The Begriff or notion is 
self-activity or individuality in its first entelechy or 
state of power, self-activity that has not completely 
revealed itself by actualized intellect and will, 
while Idee is the individuality of God who has 
from all eternity completely revealed Himself in 
perfect intellect and will. Such perfect intellect 
and will are one, so that in thinking He creates 
what he thinks. 

The great scholastic Fathers, commencing with 
Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas, learned 
this insight of Aristotle and were able to defend 
Christianity against the Moslem pantheism which 
denied immortality to man. Nominalism held 
that all general terms are arbitrary or conventional 
signs used to denote subjective aggregates or 
classes. Looking solely upon things and neglect- 
ing forces and processes, the nominalist intellect 
could see only isolated individuals and not the 
energies that generated them. Hence all that is 
real was held to be the individual thing. If it had 






THE GREEK AND GERMAN" PRINCIPLES. 35 

seen that the reality of things is only the manifes- 
tation of a greater reality behind them, the real- 
ity, namely, of the energy manifested in the things, 
it would have seen the falsity of nominalism — it 
would have seen that general terms correspond not 
to things but to processes and energies, namely, to 
what is more real than things, because energy gives 
to a thing its reality, and energy also causes it to 
change or vanish, 

The triumph of nominalism is the triumph of 
shallow thought over deeper and truer thought. 
Bat its day is forever set in this world since the 
rise of the dogma of the correlation of forces and 
the persistence of force, in modern natural science. 
For this doctrine is realistic and holds to energy 
rather than things as the true reality. 

It is one of the mysterious phases in the history 
of philosophy, this triumph of nominalism at the 
close of the great era of scholasticism, an era of 
profoundest thought and clearest insight. Chris- 
tian thought had been almost completed — very lit- 
tle has been added or is likely to be added to the 
ontological system of St. Thomas Aquinas, a sys- 
tem said to be more familiar to the world through 
Dante's Divina Commedia than through St. 
Thomas's Summa. Yet at the close of that period 
of the history of thought nominalism gets the field 
wholly to itself and William of Occam inaugurates 
his agnosticism. He also marks the utter eclipse 
of the great insight of Aristotle in theology and 
there ensues an epoch of divorce between faith and 
reason. 



36 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

This mystery, however, clears up somewhat when 
we consider the momentous importance of seizing 
in its entire conrpass this antithesis between psy- 
chology and ontology. The /• unceasing purpose 
that runs through the ages" of human history 
makes continually for freedom. Every new free- 
dom gained emancipates humanity at first. But 
after a time it imposes on the soul a sort of exter- 
nal authority and needs to be replaced by a newer 
freedom, more internal, more subjective, more 
psychologic and less ontologic in its form, though 
not less ontologic in its substance. 

Christianity alone, among the world-religions, 
makes the individual man worthy of immortal life 
in a continued human existence of growth in intel- 
lect, will, love. For Christianity holds that God 
himself is Divine-Human. Hence the human be- 
ing need not lose his humanity in approaching the 
absolute, or when he is placed " under the form 
of eternity" — sub specie mternitatis, as Spinoza de- 
scribes it. 

If the human form is divine, the human mind in 
the image of the divine mind, it follows that to 
know the nature of the mind is to know in some 
sense the nature of God. In the two worlds, the 
world of man and the world of nature, we may find 
the revelation of God. In man — m our minds — 
we may find this revelation of God in the depths of 
each individual. But in nature — in animals and 
plants and inorganic bodies — the revelation is not 
complete in the individual but only in the species 
and genera. 



THE GREEK AND GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 37 

The Christian doctrine of the infinite importance 
of each human soul and of the transcendence of 
the soul over all merely natural existences through 
the fact of its immortal destiny, generates the im- 
pulse towards subjectivity that manifests itself in 
this progressive series of emancipations from ex- 
ternal authority. Each man is above and beyond 
nature — a soul belonging to a supernatural order 
of existence. 

This idea leads back to nominalism. There is 
a perpetual recurrence of the antithesis between 
subjective and objective methods. Nominalism 
or the denial of the existence of universale is the 
complete sum of all that is negative and skep- 
tical in philosophy. It holds that all genera and 
species are subjective syntheses of thought, mere 
classifications. The reality consists of isolated in- 
dividuals, each one independent of the other. 
The result of this is atomism and the principle 
that * ' composition does not affect the parts or 
atoms of which things are composed." "When 
once reached it is impossible to explain anything 
except on the supposition of an external arrang- 
ing, directing, combining intelligence which pro- 
duces the phenomena that we behold in the 
world. The atoms are conceived as pure simples, 
and all the relations and properties and the other 
results of combination, all things perceptible, in 
short, are transferred to the other factor of the 
world, the ordering intelligence. When atomism 
gets to this point it collapses, — in all consistent 
intellects ; because the atoms have become empty 



38 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

fictions, an utterly useless scaffolding, and the 
"ordering intellect" lias become all in all. 

The only thing positive about nominalism is its 
attribution of universality to the subjective mind; 
for by making universality a product of the mind, 
it unconsciously attributes all abiding and substan- 
tial being to mind. It does not become aware of 
this wonderful endowment that it claims for' sub- 
jective mind, but the exercise of thought will 
continually bring it to the surface of conscious- 
ness. 

It is wonderful to see how the most negative 
phases, the skepticisms, the heretical doctrines, the 
most revolutionary phases in history, all proceed 
from the same first principle of thought as the 
most positive and conservative doctrines, and that 
all of these negative things are destructive only in 
their undeveloped state and when partially under- 
stood. By and by they are drawn within the great 
positive movement, and we see how useful they 
are become. Through these negative and skep- 
tical tendencies, arising from this great antithetic 
movement of thought — the movement from the 
objective to the subjective — human thought has 
ascended into a knowledge of self -determining 
activity as it is realized in mind, and this knowl- 
edge is far in advance of the old objective view of 
mind such as the Greeks delivered to the world. I 
do not say that it is far superior to the Greek in 
its principles and system, but in its method. It is 
a proximate insight into the nature of the divine 
creative process itself. We ascend through a 



THE GEEEK AND GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 39 

philosophic mastery of the relation between the 
modern and ancient point of view — the latter 
directed its attention to the relation between evan- 
escent phenomena and the abiding process (this is 
the relation of particular to universal), while the 
former looks upon the relation of the subject to 
the object and inquires what we know as truly 
objective and how we know it: — we ascend through 
a mastery of both these views to a plane that is 
above all skepticism. Skepticism is, as we have 
already seen, directed against method only. With 
the skeptics of old, as Hegel points out, the doubt 
was objective in the sense that it touched the 
method or transition by which being, or a knowl- 
edge of being, proceeds from universals to the 
objects of sense-perception. It seemed to the old 
skeptic that things of use wore out and perished 
in the course of their process. They were all in a 
flux, becoming each moment something else and 
presenting new phases of their universals, or 
"ideas" — (we have explained this expression to 
mean the total process of a thing by which all its 
potentialities come successively into realization). 
While the ancients doubted these objects of sense- 
perception, modern skeptics doubt the truth of the 
objects of reason, that is to say the universals, the 
species and genera, and are unwilling to accord 
real being to anything but the objects of sense- 
perception — to the very objects that ancient skep- 
ticism doubted ! They question the method of 
knowing, or the transition from subject to object. 
But the cause of this change, we repeat, is the 



40 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

turning of the mincl in upon itself for the truth, 
a partial movement in this direction producing 
doctrines in which there is utter disharmony be- 
tween the Greek view and our own view. 

Up to the time of David Hume the movement 
was centrifugal and it seemed likely that thought 
would never return to the point of view of the old 
ontology. Nominalism began then to see the ulti- 
mate consequences of its subjective point of view. 
According to David Hume there is no causality in 
the world so far as we can know. There is only 
sequence in time. He says: "All our knowledge 
consists of impressions of the senses and the faint 
images of these impressions called up in memory 
and in thinking. Even the ego is only a subjective 
notion, a unity of the series of impressions called 
myself." This is the Ultima Thule of the subjec- 
tive doctrine — it is the subjectivity of subjec- 
tivity. 

This is, as we have seen, the point in the devel- 
opment of modern philosophy at which Kant 
arises and offers his more complete sketch of our 
subjective nature as an explanation of the world 
of man and the world of nature in time and space. 
His sketch of mind has become familiar to all 
persons who make a pretence of studying phi- 
losophy. 

The subjectivity of man including the will, the 
intellect and the feeling, according to Kant, has 
native forms of its own. These forms are not 
derived from experience or from anything ex- 
ternal. These forms, in the aggregate, make up 



THE GEEEK AND GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 41 

the constitution of the mind itself. If we wish to 
know the truth we must be aware of the subjec- 
tive factor in knowledge and make due allowance 
for it. Things-in-themselves are modified (in our 
cognition of them) through the constitution of the 
mental faculties that know them. What we actu- 
ally know of things-in-themselves will be ascer- 
tained only after we eliminate from our cognitions 
the subjective element due to our mental forms. 

All this is so simple and in accordance with the 
spirit of the subjective skepticism of the followers 
of Hume that it recommends itself to the latter at 
once as the best of good sense. 

But as soon as the skeptic begins to compre- 
hend the Critique of Pure Reason he finds ground 
for amazement. He looks over the inventory of 
the possessions of our subjective constitution and 
beholds among the forms of the mind time, 
space, quantity, quality, relation, modality, God, 
freedom, immortality, the infinite, the beautiful, 
the good. It would seem that the subjective con- 
stitution is very rich, with all these ideas belong- 
ing to it; skepticism, however, does not see the 
ontological consequences, but strenuously asserts 
that these are only subjective. These categories 
and transcendental objects are not valid except for 
us in practically dealing with phenomena. We 
cannot know (it holds), any object in itself what- 
ever — not even the ego - in - itself — we cannot 
think it except in the categories or forms of 
mind, and such categories apply only to phenom- 
ena and not to things-in-themselves. 



42 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

But if we turn over this surprising result and 
ask what follows if we cannot apply any categories 
to things-in-themselves we suddenly discover that 
we -are at the end of subjectivity and skepticism 
and at the beginning of an ontology founded on 
psychology. Here is Hegel's significance in the 
history of philosophy, as we have already ex- 
pounded it above. 

Hegel sees that the logical consequence of deny- 
ing objective validity to these " forms of the 
mind" is to deny objectivity itself. The constitu- 
tion of mind is as objective as it is subjective, and 
its necessary ideas are the logical conditions of 
existence. Take nominalism at its word, take 
Hume at his word, or Kant at his word, and we 
have a self-refutation of the skepticism asserted. 
This is what Hegel calls the dialectic. 

Skepticism had said : " "We can never get at the 
truth and know things as they really are — things- 
in-themselves. ATe can only know what is radi- 
cally modified through our own subjective spectra, 
our forms of perception." Let us look, then, and 
behold what these subjective forms are, and learn 
to subtract them and find the remainder which is 
the true "thing-in-itself." In the first place there 
are time and space ; those are the forms of the 
sensory and are purely subjective. Kant proves 
this by showing that they are the logical conditions 
of the existence of what we call the world of na- 
ture. But they are more objective than that world 
of nature is, because they are its logical condition. 
The necessity of this is clear and it is this necessity 



THE GREEK A^D GERMAN PRINCIPLES. 43 

which proves to Kant that time and space are 
" forms of the mind." The science of mathemat- 
ics is rendered possible by our a priori insight into 
time and space. The world in time and space, it 
seems, is subjective because the very logical condi- 
tion of its existence is subjective. True, we have 
called it " objective " and have been satisfied if our 
subjectivity attained validity throughout time and 
space. Nevertheless^ if we are to make a serious 
business of inventorying our subjective possessions, 
we must begin with writing down Time and Space 
at the head of the list as subjective forms. 

But things-inTthemselves, deprived of time and 
space, will never trouble us or anybody else — for 
they cannot have extension nor change. Yes, it is 
worse off with them than that. They cannot have 
unity, nor plurality, nor totality, hence they can- 
not be spoken of as "they " — it is a courtesy on our 
part to lend them our subjective category of 
" plurality," to which they are not really entitled. 
Nor can the thing in itself (singular or plural) 
have quality or existence for anything else — nor 
relation, nor mode of being, either as possibility or 
necessity, or even as existence. The " thing-in- 
itself " cannot exist without borrowing one of our 
subjective categories (found under "modality"). 
As for the objective, then, which is opposed to our 
subjectivity and unknowable by us, it cannot be 
extant in the world of nature or in the world of 
man. It is a pure figment of the imagination, and 
cannot exist in any possible world without becom- 
ing " subjective " at once. 



HEGEL S LOGIC. 



In fact, Kant's subjective has taken up within it 
the entire antithesis of subjective and objective as 
understood by skepticism, and has become pure- 
ly universal through the fact that its forms 
are universals. Such a subjective mind is Aris- 
totle's v6r]6i^ vorfdeaos, and a self -knowing being. 
Whether Kant intended it or not, his remarks on 
things-in- themselves and on the limits of our 
knowledge make no sense unless they are taken as 
ironical. 

Here we see that Kant has taken up into the 
subjective what is commonly meant by the word 
objective. What is more objective than trees, ani- 
mals, rocks, houses, men ? Yet these are all 
"phenomena" because they arise in time and 
space, which are mere "forms of the mind." But 
when all that has been known hitherto as objective 
is called subjective, there is no longer any force in 
the distinction. Skepticism has lost its ground 
altogether. 

This insight of Hegel brings the subjective 
movement in philosophy to an end and inaugurates 
the third movement of philosophy — psychological 
ontology, or ontology based upon psychology and 
identical with Greek ontology in its general view 
of the world, but far superior in its method. 



CHAPTER III. 

hegel's education and the influence of his 
contempokabies upon him. 

/^\ EORGE WILLIAM FREDERIC HEGEL'S 
VIT ancestor, John Hegel, in the seven- 
teenth century migrated from Carinthia into 
Swabia, seeking freedom for the exercise of his 
religious convictions. The Lutheran Reforma- 
tion, which extended into the mountainous por- 
tions of western Austria, was vigilantly repressed 
by the reigning princess and the consequence was 
a migration of numbers of the most industrious 
and intelligent inhabitants. George Louis Hegel, 
the father of our philosopher, held at first the 
office of Rentkammersecretair — secretary of the 
public revenues — and was promoted subsequently. 
His mother was a woman of much education, 
considering the standard then prevailing. 

George William Frederic, the eldest son, was 
born August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart. It is note- 
worthy that besides Schelling and Hegel, both 
Swabians, the greatest genius for philosophy in the 
Middle Ages, Albertus Magnus, was also a Swabian. 
Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart were his 
pupils. 

His biographers report that Hegel began to at- 
tend a Latin school in his native town at the age 

45 



46 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

of five years, and at seven entered the gymnasium. 
He read Shakespeare in Wieland's translation at 
the age of eight. Before thirteen he had studied 
geometry, surveying, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. 

He translated the whole of Longinus On the 
Sublime at seventeen, and at eighteen the Antigone 
of Sophocles, which remained his favorite work of 
art through life. His efforts at declamation while 
at the gymnasium were unsuccessful by reason of 
awkwardness of manners and a stammering tongue. 
His French, however, was quite good and he wrote 
a clear, distinct hand. He early began the practice 
of entering in a common-place book interesting ex- 
tracts from his readings. 

In the autumn of 1788 at the age of eighteen he 
entered the university of Tubingen as student of 
theology. Here he heard lectures on metaphysics 
and natural theology by Flatt and attended 
courses by different professors on the Bible, and in 
particular on the Psalms and New Testament, and 
the book of Job, which greatly delighted him. 
Besides his theological studies, he studied anatomy 
and botany, and reviewed his favorite Greek trage- 
dies. 

He received great impulse from two companions 
at the university, Holderlin and Schelling, the 
latter coming to the university in 1790 at the age 
of fifteen — five years younger than Hegel. Hegel 
appeared older than he really was, so much so as to 
earn the familiar name of "Alter" or "the old 
man " from his mates. In his personal demeanor, 
however, he was honest and jovial. He was 



EDUCATION" AND INFLUENCES. 47 

awakened to a new activity by contact with the 
precocious intellect of Schelling. He had already 
made some acquaintance with the Wolffian philos- 
ophy as early as his fifteenth year. Wolff, it is well 
known, systematized the ideas of Leibnitz and in- 
vented formula for schematizing all knowledge. 
It was Wolff's system of philosophy against which 
Kant chiefly directed the attacks of his Critical 
system. Hegel received the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy in 1790, writing on the occasion a dis- 
sertation in Latin: "De limite officiorum humano- 
rum seposita animorum immortalitate," in which 
he showed some acquaintance with Kant. In 1793 
he received his theological degree, writing another 
thesis on the Wtirtemberg church and the relations 
of Protestantism to Catholicism. 

Kousseau's writings had made a deep impression 
on Hegel at an early age. The gospel of "liberty, 
equality, and fraternity " had been received by all 
Germans who retained any youthful enthusiasm. 
A political club for the dissemination of French 
ideas had been formed at the university, in which 
Hegel and Schelling took an active part. Not- 
withstanding the interest in French thought which 
was then universal in Germany, the philosophy of 
Kant and his successors may in one sense be re- 
garded as a speculative reaction against the tenden- 
cies that led to the French Eevolution. Goethe's 
Faust, too, portrays the same reaction in literature. 
Its content is a collision between the natural man 
swayed by selfishness, and the institutions of civili- 
zation, 



48 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

After completing his theological studies at the 
university in 1793, Hegel became private tutor in a 
family in Berne,, a position which he held for three 
years. (Fichte shortly before and Herbart about 
the same time also held the position of tutor in 
Switzerland.) Hegel passed these three years in a 
quiet and studious manner, gradually departing 
from the ideas he had received at Tubingen and 
beginning to grapple seriously with the problem 
of human responsibility and to feel distinctly the 
want of a fundamental principle that should sub- 
ordinate both the theoretical and practical phases 
of life. After writing a life of Christ, taking up 
a more thorough study of the Kantian Critiques, 
and entertaining himself with the theories of Ben- 
jamin Constant, he bent all his energies upon the 
mastery of Fichte's Science of Knowledge, which 
had just then appeared. By this latter book his 
Swabian stubbornness and patience were put to a 
severe test. But he found some assistance in his 
correspondence with Schelling at this time in the 
work of gaining an insight into the subtile psycho- 
logical analysis of Fichte. Schelling's genius had 
been thoroughly aroused by the Science of Knowl- 
edge. He not only comprehended the positive doc- 
trines of the book, but detected the unconscious 
fallacy that had led Fichte to place subjective limi- 
tations to the validity of his theoretic principles, 
Fichte following in this respect the example of 
Kant. The universal and necessary truths, which, 
according to the critical system, were held to de- 
monstrate the subjectivity of all knowledge, 



EDUCATION AKD IKFLTJE^CES. 49 

seemed to Schelling to establish its objectivity. 
For they were not universal and necessary unless 
they were the necessary condition of the existence 
of objects in time and space. With this insight 
he hastened to construe the world of nature 
a priori by means of transcendental ideas. Self- 
consciousness revealed the hidden laws and princi- 
ples implicit in ordinary knowing and these laws 
and principles drawn out of the unconscious ac- 
tivity of the mind were identified with the moving 
forces of nature and thus came to be attributed to 
an impersonal reason, a " soul of the world. " 

Schelling diverged in this direction during his 
first career until he developed a system in strong 
contrast with that of Fie lite. Fichte laid all 
stress on the subjective, conscious ego, and the 
free moral will; Schelling emphasized the objec- 
tive—the unconscious development of nature. 
There was no necessary incongruity in the two 
systems except what arose from one-sidedness due 
to the intense emphasis given to the opposite poles 
of this philosophy. Fichte subordinated every-- 
thing else to the moral will and regarded nature 
as merely phenomenal and scarcely worthy of 
man's attention, while Schelling turned to nature 
and history as unconscious realizations of spirit 
in time and space and hence worthy all study as 
divine incarnations. Fichte slighted time and 
space and hence everything real and conventional 
— institutions, beliefs, systems — the world, in 
short. He tended towards asceticism, and subor- 
dinated the world to the soul somewhat as did 
Thomas a Kempis. 



50 



HEGEL'S LOGIC, 



Schelling, on the other hand, looked upon the 
world as a revelation of the absolute and held it 
sacred, while subjectivity — the ego and its inter- 
ests — became less and less important in his eyes. 
As a consequence, human practical aims and en- 
deavors, and even morality, lost their interest for 
him. 

Through the assistance of his friend Holderlin, 
Hegel obtained a situation in 1797 as tutor in 
Frankfort. His interest in philosophical studies 
increased. He studied Plato and Sextus Empiri- 
cus and began to seize what he afterwards called 
the "objective dialectic" into which he could 
translate the psychological process of Fichte. 

In 1790 his father died leaving him some prop- 
erty and in 1801 he removed to Jena, then the 
centre of literary activity. Fichte had recently 
gone to Berlin and Schelling was at Jena as Pro- 
fessor Extraordinarius. Hegel lectured on logic, 
metaphysics, the philosophy of nature, and the 
philosophy of spirit. In 1805 he lectured on the 
history of philosophy, pure mathematics, and nat- 
ural rights; in 1806 on the unity of philosophical 
systems and the phenomenology of spirit. He 
had been, up to this time, a follower of Schelling, 
but with differences. He had approached nearest 
to Schelling when the latter, in 1799 to 1801, held 
the doctrine that the absolute is the identity of 
the subjective and objective and that this identity 
is reason or intelligence. The subjective retains 
all its rights within an absolute which is intelli- 
gence, and Hegel could hold that the absolute is 



EDUCATION AKD INFLUENCES. 51 

reason and agree with Schelling until Schelling, 
in 1803,. began to construe his absolute identity as 
the absolute indifference of subjective and objec- 
tive. The "indifference of the two poles" being 
understood to transcend both the subject and 
object at once, all possibility of solving the prob- 
lem of the world by philosophy is precluded. 
Schelling, however, inconsistently went on philoso- 
phizing; but Hegel became aware of a radical 
difference between his own view of the world and 
Schilling's. By Hegel great light had been seen 
in the fact that nature is the becoming of Eeason 
and hence that there are two phases of Eeason in 
the world: conscious reason in humanity and in the 
absolute; unconscious reason in nature. Nature 
in all its activities is moving towards conscious- 
ness. The absolute is Conscious Eeason who 
creates nature as his own reflection ; "He elevates 
his not-me into a likeness to Himself " (as Eothe 
expresses it). Seen at bottom, nature is only the 
spectacle of the victory of divine reason over its 
opposite. This is manifested in a series of stages 
or degrees of ascent out of pure space, which is the 
emptiest thought of the objective opposed to the 
subjective. In all changes and processes of nature 
the substantially existent is only the divine act of 
negating the opposite of reason. This act of 
negating, however, is affirmative as well as nega- 
tive, for it is a process of self-determination which 
constructs by continually using what it has al- 
ready made, as material out of which to build the 
new. 



52 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

Hegel's own system began now to reveal its out- 
lines : (1) Logic or science of pure thought (pure 
reason), including the universal ideas applying to 
nature and mind alike ; (2) Philosophy of nature, 
detecting these pure ideas as the substantial ener- 
gies underlying the processes of nature ; (3) the 
philosophy of man as finite spirit, rising in relig- 
ion to the conception of the Absolute or Pure 
Eeason again ; thus completing the circle of phi- 
losophy. 

Hegel had been greatly attached to Greek litera- 
ture and philosophy. His studies of Plato and 
Aristotle were quite as fruitful as his studies of 
Kant, Fichte and Schelling. Schelling discovers 
the principle of absolute identity, but Hegel dis- 
covers what is more valuable, namely: the identity 
of the results of Plato and Aristotle with the true 
logical outcome of the psychology of Kant and 
Fichte. Having once found the fundamental 
thought that unites ancient and modern thinking, 
Hegel is able to begin the work of philosophical 
interpretation. 

When one is continually discovering the new 
and different, one continually advances towards 
self-estrangement. If I am the only one who ever 
saw this truth — if all former thinkers were in 
error — how suggestive is this of another consider- 
ation : " Is it not probable that I am still groping 
in error myself ? I behold everywhere systems of 
error set up by enthusiastic but mistaken thinkers. 
I recall the fact that my own career has been the 
development of systems of apparent truth which 



EDUCATION AND INFLUENCES. 53 

I have soon outgrown and laid aside as false. 
Unless the course of the world changes, I shall 
myself change again and my present view will be 
seen to be false. " 

The epoch of new systems must be followed by 
an epoch of despair and skepticism unless a phi- 
losophy arises that is synthetic and unites all pre- 
vious ones in a harmony of thought. If each one 
helps illuminate every other, the light is rein- 
forced by every philosophic system and there is 
perfect day. If each one refutes all its prede- 
cessors and is refuted by all succeeding systems, 
then the net result of the entire movement of phil- 
osophic thought is darkness and night. Kant's 
and especially Fichte's philosophizing^ tend in the 
skeptical direction through the attitude of radical 
hostility they assume towards all previous systems 
of thought. But Schelling is in two senses con- 
structive : (1) Instead of leaving nature as a 
thing in itself outside of and beyond all mind, or 
making it merely an empty occasion for my own 
moral development, Schelling recognizes in it a 
genuine objective and independent development of 
reason fundamentally identical with my own spirit : 
my own development of reason is thus reflected 
in other forms of nature and so the goal at which 
I have arrived and am arriving is approved by the 
great process of struggle for existence which I see 
and call nature. (2) Quite as important is the 
mastery, one by one, of the great systems of pre- 
ceding thinkers by Schelling. He successively 
appropriated the standpoints of Kant, Fichte, 



54 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Franz Baader, Jacob 
Bdhme. His studies in these philosophers are of 
great value because he unfolds their inner neces- 
sity. The bane of superficial historians is the 
method of setting down the doctrines of philos- 
ophy without depicting the inner necessity of their 
point of view. They are thus made to appear like 
mere fanciful opinions and when arranged in an 
orderly manner, as in Mr. Lewes' Biographical 
History of Philosophy, remind us of an amateur's 
collection of insects — carefully asphyxiated and 
then placed upon pins. 

To be of value, the history of thought must not 
be presented as a series of dead results, but as liv- 
ing insights, each one of which is seen by us now 
in its necessity. Philosophical systems vary less 
through their principle of explanation than 
through their application to the problems of the 
time. Their principles, of course, are what is 
essential — not their application to transient prob- 
lems nor their technique, which is always colored 
by local and temporal issues. 

Schelling made one epoch therefore in the Kan- 
tian philosophy when he set up the doctrine that 
the "thing in itself" is intelligence, and still an- 
other when he began to interpret the series of 
subtle thinkers and rehabilitate the living insights 
which their systems contained. He had dis- 
covered the vital basis for a history of philosophy 
that should really interpret the different systems. 

Hegel was profoundly impressed with Spel- 
ling's discoveries in the history of thought, and 



EDUCATION AKD IKFLUESTCES. 55 

was perhaps impelled in this direction by their 
influence. But Hegel's success in history surpasses 
that of his master as much as Aristotle's results 
in natural science surpass the suggestive hints of 
Plato. Hegel was fortunately led in the begin- 
ning to the very centre of ancient thought. It 
was evident enough that the thought of the past 
two thousand years had been not merely influenced, 
but almost wholly formed, on the systems of Aris- 
totle and Plato. Hegel studied those systems, 
and, to his great delight, recognized in them the 
living idea which had been lately announced as a 
new discovery of Schelling. There had been only 
a new road opened to the goal, not a new goal 
found. But Hegel saw that this new road was of 
uttermost importance for the reason that it flanked 
the position of all possible skepticism, and hence 
made the central bulwark of philosophy secure for 
all future time. 

Hegel's advantage, therefore, consisted, as we 
have shown in the previous chapter, in his recov- 
ering for us, by adequate interpretation, the specu- 
lative insights of the great system of thought 
which had prevailed in the world for twenty cen- 
turies and oii which, in a sense, the institutions of 
modern civilization had been built. This old 
system had lost the insight into its speculative 
necessity and had become mostly a tradition, 
taught in the universities from one generation to 
the next in prescriptive formulae that had become 
dead. Nothing so surely drives the living spirit 
of insight out of a system as to adapt it for use in 



56 hegel's logic. 

schools. The guiding principle kept in mind in 
the preparation of a text-book is the capacity of 
the pupil. In the attempt to make the subject 
clear on the plane of thought of the immature 
mind which thinks only in images and pictures, 
the author changes his attitude towards truth from 
that of a discoverer to that of an expounder. He 
suppresses the definition of the pure thought and 
sets down only the analogies and illustrations that 
flow from it. He offers baked bread instead of 
seed-corn. The pupils nurtured on this philo- 
sophical pap in time come to be professors them- 
selves. They have no tradition that the doctrines 
of Plato and Aristotle ever had any other meaning 
than the commonplace truisms which they have 
learned. Eccentric philosophers off the line of 
the traditional school-wisdom, like Bruno, Spin- 
oza, Bohme, and Swedenborg, have a power to 
arouse original thought, because their technique 
is unconventional. Like Schelling, the aroused 
student begins to see the morning-red and turns 
away from commonplace to gaze with wonder on 
the growing light. He becomes a mystic and it 
never occurs to him that there is besides the morn- 
ing redness also clear daylight behind the com- 
monplace dogmas of school- wisdom. 

Schelling finds the truth of the mystics, and 
Hegel finds the underlying truth of the school- 
wisdom. The former works in a remote field of 
human inquiry; the latter in the very highways 
of the world of thought. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

HEGEL'S "VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY " — THIHG, 
FORCE,, LAW. 

SCHELLING removed to AYurzburg in 1803 
and at the same time began a removal in 
thought that placed him farther and farther from 
Hegel. In the Critical Journal of Philosophy 
Hegel had, in 1801, characterized Fichte as a sub- 
jective idealist in contrast to Schelling as objec- 
tive idealist. Now he had begun to define his 
own relation to them both. 

In the Phenomenology of Spirit, published in 
1807, a work which he afterwards called his 
"Voyage of Discovery/' he undertook to trace the 
history of consciousness in its growth from the 
first stages of culture up to the theoretical and 
practical conviction which underlies modern civil- 
ization. In the preface to this work he attacks 
the immediate " intuition " of Schelling and 
shows that thought or knowledge without media- 
tion is entirely empty. To think a pure simple or 
a pure unity is to think a pure nothing. All think- 
ing of distinctions is a mediate knowing. Hegel 
employs in this voyage of discovery a method that 
he names the "dialectic." It has throughout 
the appearance of being a stricter method than 
that of Fichte's "Science of Knowledge/' and 

57 



58 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 



the 



claims to be objective — an exhibition of 
necessity of the process which is in the object be- 
fore us, in contradistinction from mere subjective 
reflections upon it made from points of view exter- 
nal to the object. 

The stage of simple sense-perception he calls 
Consciousness, in contradistinction to "self-con- 
sciousness," "reason," etc., more advanced stadia 
of the mind. This simple sense-perception in its 
first form without mediation — that is to say, with- 
out the act of comparison which traces out rela- 
tions between its object and other objects and takes 
them into consideration in its knowing, is found 
to know nothing true. The evidence of any im- 
mediate act of sense-perception is refuted by the 
next act. What I see this moment is different 
from what I see the next moment, and unless I 
can adjust and reconcile these differences they 
cancel each other and reduce to zero. I accord- 
ingly explain the changes in the object first by 
referring them to myself, and not succeeding in 
explaining them by this means I discover that the 
object cannot be known immediately, because it is 
not a simple absolute being, but a relative being, 
mediated through its environment. HegeFs meth- 
od does not seek to find an external basis of attack 
or defense, but to get this basis from the object 
itself. If sense-perception can know anything we 
ought to discover the fact by analyzing its proced- 
ure. Time and space are the general forms of ex- 
istence for all that can offer itself to sense-percep- 
tion. Whatever is extended in time and space 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 59 

is compound, having parts. The sense-knowledge 
must seize these through analysis and synthesis 
and hence reach its knowledge through a process. 
The word perception etymologically signifies a 
seizing-by-means-of, L e., one might say, "by 
means of other objects/'' relative objects being 
seized by means of the other objects to which they 
relate. The German word wahrnelimen implies 
this mediation. Hegel delights to find in the ety- 
mology of technical terms indications like this of 
the unconscious poetic insight that presided at 
the formation of language — but one may easily 
be too confident of his etymologies. Hegel wishes 
to write the ideal history of the development of 
consciousness, and hence proceeds to describe the 
points of view that naturally follow from the dis- 
covery of successive difficulties and the suggestion 
of obvious solutions. In every imperfect stand- 
point there will arise conflicts just because of the 
imperfection. 

I. For example, the object that is now found 
to be mediated or dependent on others has this 
contradiction: (1) It is one and many — exclud- 
ing others and yet participating in their being ;, 
for I cannot know it as one without distinguishing 
it by some of its properties. But a property is a 
relation of an object to some other object and 
hence a bond of union essentially uniting two 
objects. This contradicts the simple oneness that 
appeared at first glance. (2) My object is there- 
fore this common relation of two, but I perceive 
that a property not only unites but distinguishes ; 



60 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

for by its properties one thing is distinguished 
from another. 

(3) Hence I contemplate another phase, or 
rather return to the phase of exclusion which 
characterizes unity. (4) But here I find that the 
exclusion by means of which the object is one is 
through many properties and that the object is 
internally a manifold : hence, again, I conclude 
that the object is a common medium, a collection 
of properties each of which excludes all others. 
(5) The fifth step, therefore, of this observation 
of the mediated object will be to take an isolated 
property as the ultimate unit of true objectivity. 
Here I discover that my attempt to know the 
truth has led me round to the first position, that 
of simple sensuous certitude : I try again the im- 
possible feat of holding a single individual out of 
all relation. In such isolation it cannot be a 
property, for that is a relation to others ; nor can 
it be definite except in contrast, and contrast is 
also relation. I am holding an abstraction that 
exists only in my fancy, for the truth. 

II. This minute analysis of the necessary pro- 
cedure of consciousness continues ; it is suggested 
that we explain the duality and contradiction 
which arises in experience by referring one phase 
to the object and one phase to the subject. By 
discriminating properly we shall be able, perhaps, 
to escape the contradiction. (1) The object then 
is one ; but as I have many senses there arises an 
appearance of many properties through the variety 
of my sense-organs. The one object appears 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 61 

white to the eye, cubical to the touch, acid to the 
taste, etc. I make allowance for these subjective 
appearances and thus convince myself of the sim- 
plicity of the object for my thought. But a new 
difficulty arises : the object without these proper- 
ties cannot be an excluding unity, it has nothing 
left to it by which it can be distinguished from 
any other object, or by which indeed it can be an 
object at all of my thought or perception. I per- 
ceive, therefore, that I have destroyed by my 
theory all that I receive from the object and have 
even left it impossible that the object should ever 
have attracted my attention at all. 

(2) Out of this dilemma the consciousness 
escapes by adopting the opposite theory : the ob- 
ject is really a collection of properties and its 
appearance of unity is borrowed from my subjec- 
tive consciousness. The properties are indepen- 
dent, simple materials combined so as to form an 
object, and I by a law or habit of my thinking 
attribute unity to the combination. Here I come 
suddenly back to the former conviction, namely, 
that the isolated properties are the simple and true 
units of existence, and, recalling my former proof 
of its untenability, I give up this method of ex- 
plaining the contradiction by referring it to the 
duality of subject and object. I see that the ob- 
ject itself is one and many. 

III. Consciousness sees now the necessity of ad- 
mitting that the duality (unity and multiplicity) 
is entirely objective. For the purpose of avoiding 
contradiction it at first adopts the theory that 



62 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

rests on the distinctions of being-for-itself and 
being-f or-others. The object is one when taken for 
itself ; its multiplicity of properties arises through 
its relation to other objects. It is one for-itself, 
manifold, for-others. Here consciousness adopts 
a device similar to a former one; then (II. 1) it ex- 
plained the multiplicity through relation to itself 
as subject, now it explains it through relation to 
other objects. "In so far" as the thing is for it- 
self, it is one and simple ; "in so far" as it is for 
others, it appears manifold. Here at last we have 
come to the root of the contradiction which has 
masqueraded under the foregoing problems. The 
previous solutions were only attempts to avoid 
meeting the issue squarely. But is our present 
solution valid ? 

The being-for-others is necessary to the object 
in order to preserve its individuality — that is to 
say, without a multitude of distinctions and dif- 
ferences one thing coalesces with others — hence 
multiplicity belongs to it of necessity. Without 
these properties that arise through its relation to 
others there could be no being-for-itself. It would 
be null. I conclude, therefore, that the being-for- 
itself, which is the simple, radical character of the 
object, is essentially in relation to others and 
hence essentially multiplex within itself, and all 
my painstaking to escape the contradiction has 
been to no purpose. 

The explanations have amounted to a mere post- 
ponement of the solution — "The multiplicity 
comes from others ;" that is to sa}^, it is presup- 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 63 

posed but not explained after all. But it does not 
help the question to postpone it, for it comes up 
again in a new quarter, and, what is worse, reap- 
pears in the place from which we thought to have 
shifted it. To suppose that a series of objects, a, 
by c, d, and e, in the world, are simple units and 
yet stand in relation to one another so that the 
appearance of multiplicity arises, does not rid us 
of our difficulty. To suppose that a differs from 
b by its fundamental simple quality and that it 
differs from c by the same quality, while yet b dif- 
fers from c, is to suppose that a is distinguished 
from c by a different difference from that in which 
it differs from b. It will also differ from d and e 
by still other differences. So, too, of each of the 
others, and hence we see that relativity implies 
indefinite multiplicity in the simple quality as- 
sumed to explain the object. 

The truth reached is that that the object is be- 
ing-in-itself precisely in-so-far as it is being-for- 
others; or, in other words, that it is one in so far 
as it is manifold and manifold in so far as it is 
one. 

Such a result can have no meaning to the sen- 
suous consciousness which sees, hears and feels 
only present impressions ; nor to perception, aided 
as it is by that stage of reflection which under- 
takes to explain all by the category of " thing. " 
This necessary result is comprehensible in a 
higher stage of thought, however, namely in that 
stage of thinking which explains all by the idea of 
Force. 



64 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

In explaining the world of sense we presuppose 
forces that manifest themselves. The manifesta- 
tion is an utterance or externalization of a unity 
which we conceive as an energy. A force is a 
being-in-itself which is at the same time being-for- 
others ; or, in different language, a force exists 
only in its manifestation. Hegel calls the stage of 
consciousness that uses the thought of force to 
explain experience, the understanding. Force 
should be, according to him, the characteristic 
category of the understanding. 

The understanding will not see, at first, all the 
difficulties involved in this thought of force. It 
will begin to use it with feeble insight. In solv- 
ing its difficulties it will rise to the idea of law, 
according to Hegel. 

If we consider the idea of force we find that in 
order to explain the activity by which it manifests 
itself we have to presuppose something else which 
furnishes the occasion for the manifestation. A 
force acts in a definite direction because it is lim- 
ited through other forces which guide its direc- 
tion. A force acts when the restraint to its action 
is removed. But the guiding forces are restraints 
upon which it manifests itself. So we conceive 
force as pent up (Hegel uses the expression 
" zuriick-gedrangte") by other forces before its 
manifestation. But in truth we see that a force is 
expending its energy already on the forces that 
keep it pent-up. To hold back the force of a res- 
ervoir the dam must every moment exert a press- 
ure equal to that of the water that it confines, and 



YOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 65 

in and through that pressure the force is already 
manifesting itself. 

Consciousness thus perceives upon reflection 
that a force cannot exist as an isolated impulse. 
It must always form a member of a complex of 
forces which are conceived as furnishing its incite- 
ment to activity as well as its guide,, constraining 
form, or mould that determines the channel of its 
activity. With this it arrives at the idea of a 
higher unity than force — Law. 

To explain this more fully : In the complex or 
system of forces each particular force is held in 
tension by all the others and is furnished the occa- 
sion of its activity by the others. Conceived as a 
system, therefore, each force contributes to furnish 
occasion for all the others, and hence to incite 
them to furnish occasion for its own activity. 
Hegel says that each force is solicited (" sollici- 
tirt ") to activity. If one force incites to activity 
another that again reciprocally incites the former 
to activity, this complex of forces is self-activity. 
For the force incites another force to react upon it 
— in other words it incites itself through the 
agency of another. 

The unity of the system whereby each force has 
its own "utterance" returned to it is called law. 
This is a new and most important conception for 
consciousness, the conception of a law governing 
forces — furnishing them their occasion for activity 
and giving direction to them. It is a conception 
similar in some respects to Plato's " Ideas," which 
were also determining forms containing the com- 



66 



HEGEl/S LOGIC. 



plete or total sphere of all determinateness, or in 
other words the total round of all change and par- 
ticularization. Of course one would not contend 
that the popular notion of law comprehends all 
this. Nevertheless, it brings together under the 
concept of law the elements of the thought with- 
out uniting them completely on the one hand, or 
even perceiving their incongruity on the other. 
It looks upon law as governing a system of forces 
correlated in such a manner that they furnish not 
only the energy, but the inciting occasion to activ- 
ity. When we say "nature acts according to law," 
we include these thoughts. Often, however, law 
means simply a ratio of two forces which measures 
the activity of one by another, as the law of posi- 
tive and negative electricity or of the distance and 
period of revolution of the planets. Even then it 
is the unity of the system that incites and guides 
the one force through the other — the .positive in- 
citing and regulating the negative, and the nega- 
tive, in like manner, its opposite. 

The law is conceived as a sort of internal unity 
which explains the external variety of manifesta- 
tion that is found in the action of the system of 
forces. 

Thus we began with things and came to forces 
and thence to laws. Thing, force, and law are 
the three categories of consciousness by which it 
construes to itself the world of experience. But 
these ideas are not coordinate ; they do not stand 
side by side like trees and houses. The stage of 
consciousness that thinks with the category 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 67 

"thing" is very shallow compared with that stage 
which explains the object dynamically with the 
category of "force"; likewise the category of 
"force "is partial compared with that of "law." 
The category of "force" includes all that there is 
in the category of "thing/- but fuses it into a 
unity which is coherent, whereas the elements are 
incoherent in the category of "thing." " Thing" 
is conceived as a unity of different properties, which 
exclude each its opposite and yet interpenetrate as 
it were in the "thing." The idea of " force" 
solves for us the difficulty of conception, for it 
furnishes the notion of that whose nature it is to 
be a process of unfolding from one into many, from 
a hidden identity into a manifest difference. It 
never occurs to us that there is any more difficulty 
in thinking the thought of force than there is in 
thinking the thought of thing. To the person 
not an adept in this way of studying psychology, it 
is an amazing discovery that force is a deeper and 
truer mode of thinking an object than that which 
calls it a thing. Force stands to thing as motion 
stands to rest. 

"A thing cannot move where it is and of course 
it cannot move where it is not," said the Eleatic 
thinker. Motion translated into terms of rest is 
utterly incoherent. Rest, too, is an incoherent 
category taken by itself. For it is a relative term 
and implies other things. It involves plurality as 
well as unity. But the idea of motion seems as 
simple as that of rest and is in reality far simpler, 
because it explicitly states what rest only implies. 



68 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

The idea of motion makes intelligible the existence 
of an object in different places. So the idea of 
force makes intelligible the existence of manifold 
properties in the unity of a thing. 

But the thought of force is not an ultimate 
thought. It suppresses some important determina- 
tions that are implied in it. It implies external 
incitement and external guidance and hence pre- 
supposes other forces in unity with it in a system. 
But there must be a uniting force to hold these 
forces in a system. Hence arises the idea of a 
form-giving force which is called law. 

If one conceives law merely as a statement of 
the uniformity of action, as a mere rule in short, 
still he implies behind this uniformity some cause 
of it which is at the same time unity and multi- 
plicity, just as a single force is unity and multi- 
plicity. The difference between a particular force 
and this force underlying the system of forces 
must consist in this : it (the system) is its own in- 
citement or occasion and its own guide or form, 
and it furnishes the incitement for the other 
forces and gives them form or directs their ac- 
tivity. 

Whether the name "law" be given rightly or 
not to this form-giving principle which incites into 
action the special forces, it is clear that we have a 
self-activity which is the origin of all the special 
forces and hence also of all the static equilibria of 
forces which are called "things." This is clear 
to one who reflects on the following considera- 
tions: 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 69 

(1) To incite into activity a system of forces 
and guide their action, the one through the other, 
requires a power that is its own incitement and 
guide and therefore a self-activity. If each de- 
manded an external incitement and could not act 
until such were furnished, and there were no self- 
activity to furnish an incitement, there would be 
no activity. For if one force is incapable of origi- 
nating its occasion for action, an infinite number 
of such incapables does not help the case. (2) A 
power that can incite into action and give direc- 
tion or guidance to another force must possess an 
equal or greater force. Force can be pent up only 
by an equal or greater force and it can be guided 
only by such a force. Hence it follows that the laAV 
contains a force equal to all the special forces 
united by it into a system. Hence, too, this sur- 
prising result : the law does not need indepen- 
dently existing forces to have something to act 
upon, because it has to furnish an equal number of 
equivalent forces and provide their incitement. 
The supposition of independent, already existing 
forces for the law to act upon therefore does not 
help to explain anything, for the inciting and 
guiding forces of the law can perform everything 
required of the independent forces. 

(3) Hence the law or the power that exists as a 
unity which furnishes special impulses of force as 
incitement and guidance is a unity that unfolds 
spontaneously into multiplicity. 

(4) Every force is conceived as an energy exist- 
ing in the form of a tension. It impels outward 



70 HEGEI/S LOGIC, 

and is restrained by another f orce, which in turn 
impels outward and is restrained by the former, 
and others. The activity of a force is a movement 
to restore equilibrium and this presupposes that 
the tension or restraining force has been changed. 
If a force in acting destroyed another equilibrium 
equivalent to itself it would give rise to another 
force precisely its quantitative equivalent. Here 
we come upon the recent thought of the conserva- 
tion of energy or correlation of forces. Hegel 
used the technical terms (1) force {Kraft), (2) ut- 
terance or manifestation (2Ensserung), (3) incit- 
ing or soliciting {sollicitirende) , (4) restrained or 
pent up (zuriickgedrdngte), (5) internal world of 
law which corresponds to the external manifesta- 
tion of forces {Inner e der Dinge, or ivaliren 
Hintergmwid der Dinge, corresponding to Mitte 
des Spiels der Krtifte). This internal world of law 
which is behind the play of forces in the fore- 
ground he calls also the interior truth, the abso- 
lute Universal (because it is both one and many, 
both for-itself and for-others). He calls it also a 
supersensuous world, "an abiding beyond" op- 
posed to a "transient this side," "an in-itself 
which is the first, and therefore an imperfect man- 
ifestation of reason." K"ext he describes it as "a 
quiet realm of laws, beyond the world of sense- 
perception which shows to us the law only under 
the form of constant change, but that realm of 
laws is present in the sense-world and its immedi- 
ate unchanging image or copy." 

The language which Hegel uses shows, therefore, 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 71 

the road over which he traveled to the thought of 
this self -active essence presupposed by all pheno- 
mena. It indicates his studies of Schelling and 
his predecessors, Kant and Fichte. Hence, too, 
his illustrations of these thoughts. He calls up 
the law of universal gravitation as the very notion 
itself of law as lying behind the play of forces. It 
is that which constitutes its great significance, he 
tells us. So, too, electricity, which as simple 
power manifests itself as self-opposition or polarity 
of positive and negative. Gravitation, too, has 
polarization or duality taking the form of time 
and space relations, the ratio of the squares of 
times to the cubes of distances passed over. We 
can see how Schelling's symbol of polarity and the 
point of indifference is the original subject of He- 
gel's investigation here, and that he thought it out 
in this universal form, changing a symbol derived 
from a mere particular object, a magnet, into gen- 
eral abstract thoughts — pure thoughts. 

The advance made over Schelling is to be found 
in this new conception of the point of indifference 
between the two opposite poles. Here was an essen- 
tial divergence from Schelling's semi-poetic think- 
ing, which was very suggestive but imperfect, be- 
cause it used symbols instead of abstract thoughts. 
The symbol suggests, but does not define. It helps 
at first and hinders afterwards. The magnet, for 
example, was a brilliant metaphor and stimulated 
reflection at first. But owing to its peculiar limi- 
tations, which made it only a magnet and not the 
World-Spirit, it soon began to mislead — suggestive 



72 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

of truth at first and then of error. For the mag- 
netos poles are mere north and south directions,, and 
not subject and object as in consciousness, and yet 
the magnet had to do duty for the latter. The in- 
difference point between the opposing poles, too, 
is neither north nor south, and devoid of polar- 
ity, a mere indifference utterly indeterminate — a 
sort of zero or nothing. Applied to the world the 
limitation and error appears; for the one pole shall 
be mind and the other pole nature, and the abso- 
lute essence shall be the point of indifference, an 
utter void of determinations, a substance that is 
neither mind nor matter. Spinoza's " substance/' 
which is the indifference of thought and extension, 
is something like this symbolic absolute of Schill- 
ing, and the East Indian pantheism and all other 
pantheism amount to essentially the same thing. 
The results of this doctrine have been drawn out of 
it by the unconscious syllogistic process of human 
history again and again. Thus it has been inferred 
that the absolute transcends not only matter but 
also mind. It is therefore above intelligence and 
consciousness — a supreme unity above the duality 
of self-knowledge as well as above the duality of 
dependence which matter manifests. Hence all 
beings, material and spiritual, are devoid of the 
divine principle and must perish in their individu- 
ality and be "absorbed" in order to return to the 
divine. Such an absolute cannot be called a crea- 
tor, for to create is to impart substance and exis- 
tence, and such impartation would be self-separa- 
tion and not "indifference/' but rather a polar 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVEKY. 73 

difference of positive and negative or active and 
passive within itself. Hence such an absolute does 
not explain anything ; it does not show how the 
world of difference arises. All steps lead towards 
it, but none from it, as has been said of Spinoza's 
substance : 

Qucerentem nulla ad speluncam signa ferebant. 

When in the first excitement at seeing the sug- 
gestive symbol, Schelling had inclined to recognize 
pure reason in the identity of the two poles, nature 
and mind. Nature is petrified mind — reason is 
the identity. What a glorious inspiration this 
thought was to the thinkers who had begun to be 
disappointed with the limitations of the critical 
system as interpreted by Kant and Fichte ! Hegel 
was glad to call himself a. disciple of Schelling 
with this doctrine on his banner. 

But Schelling soon began to inquire more 
closely into this identity of mind and nature and 
guided the course of his investigation by the sym- 
bol of the magnet. His guiding compass pointed, 
directly towards the empty void of indifferent, 
negative unity. He began to develop this stand- 
point of the empty absolute as transcending mind 
just at the period when he left Jena for Wtirzburg. 
The subsequent four years were given by Hegel to 
the development of the thought of the identity of 
mind and nature and the systematic statement of 
his views in this Phenomenology of Spirit. 



CHAPTER V. 

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY — " BEGRIFF," OR SELF- 
ACTIVITY. 



THE first part of the Phenomenology treats 
consciousness in the three stadia of (a) sense- 
certitude, (b) sense-perception, (6 1 ) force and 
understanding, the phenomenal and supersensu- 
ous worlds. These three stadia we have endeav- 
ored to present to the reader, in our interpretation 
of the Hegelian thought, avoiding his style of 
expression as being unnecessarily difficult to peo- 
ple unfamiliar with the questions under discus- 
sion in the philosophical circles of Germany in 
1803-7. Had Hegel written his book seventy 
years later, he would certainly have used the 
technique of the correlationists and illustrated his 
thoughts from the writings of Mayer, Helmholz, 
Grove and Spencer. He would have shown how 
they have made inferences that lifted them to a 
new stadium of thought, that of law, which 
these writers call "correlation of forces," or 
" persistence of force," not seeing how unlike 
their new thought is to the old thought of force. 
The thought of force involves an unstable equi- 
librium, an energy in a state of tension, and its 
incitement to activity must come to it from with- 
out through another force equivalent to it. Even 

74 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 75 

its action must be the creation of another pent-up 
energy equivalent to it, and hence its passing over 
into another correlated force. But this "persis- 
tent force" that is the indifference of all forces 
and is neither heat nor light nor electricity nor 
magnetism nor gravity, and yet the energy that 
produces them all in succession — what is it ? Is 
it, too, a force ? Hegel would have pointed out 
the fact that it was not coordinate to particular 
forces and hence could not receive its incitement 
from others, and being ultimate or absolute must 
be its own incitement ; it must be in other words 
self-determined, self-active, self-polarizing into 
positive and negative opposites. In a self-deter- 
mined being the negative process of determining 
annuls the indifferent indeterminateness, or emp- 
tiness, and originates finite, limited or particular 
beings. The universal or general becomes special- 
ized, not however by some external influence, but 
by its own activity. If the correlationists should 
consider carefully their result and not stop before 
it as the unknowable, they would discover that 
they have traced determinations back to self-activ- 
ity, or all rest back to motion, and all motion 
back to self-motion. A careful study of Plato — 
the tenth book of the Laws for example — would 
elevate any thinker into the consciousness of 
this stadium of thought. A like study of Aris- 
totle, who is more difficult to read than Plato, 
would bring one to the same or a higher result. 
For Aristotle is very careful not to use the term 
self-motion, a too symbolic term, but to substitute 



HEGEL S LOGIC. 



the term energy for it. He carefully discrimi- 
nates it from motion in space, confining the word 
motion (xiv?/6is) to this latter signification. He 
probably did not gain much by this except against 
the disciples of the " Academy," who for the most 
part followed the symbolic mode of exposition 
derived from the master, Plato, and in conse- 
quence contributed little or nothing to the furth- 
erance of philosophy, symbols being good servants 
but bad masters. As before remarked, they serve 
to stimulate and arouse us at the beginning, but 
lead to error if taken as norms of thought, or as 
adequate definitions. Hegel is the first of the 
great Coryphei of German philosophy who studied 
Greek philosophy thoroughly, and this he had 
done before his proper discipleship of Schelling. 
But he returned to that study ao-ain and ao'ain 
throughout his life. We may therefore legiti- 
mately accredit something in this chapter on 
Force and the Understanding to Aristotle. 

Hegel proceeds in the chapter under consid- 
eration to trace out the growth or development 
of the thought of law as an explanation of the 
differences in phenomena. In addition to the 
above-named technical terms he uses "pure inter- 
change" (reiner Weclisel) to describe the process 
of formal explanation of force by means of law. 
The formalist says that "lightning is caused by 
electricity," meaning nothing more by "electric- 
ity" than he meant before by "lightning;" or he 
says that "it is the law of electricity to manifest 
itself as positive and negative electricities." The 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 77 

fact is stated twice in the same sentence, once as 
cause and once as effect. This tautology is not 
merely a tautology of expression but is found in 
the idea of law itself, and in it there is this 
self-separation which appertains to self-activity. 
Hegel proceeds to use the technical terms homo- 
nymous (Gleichnamige) and heteronymous (Un- 
gleiclmamige). In the attempt to think the idea 
of law without being obliged to think self-activity, 
the understanding explains the procedure from 
unity to multiplicity, from the simplicity of the 
law to its differences necessary to incite and guide 
the different forces, by supposing the law to be 
also a force that duplicates itself, giving rise to all 
the differences in the supersensuous world before 
they become a "play of forces" in this world. 
Thus we have an inverted world (verkehrte Welt) 
placed beyond, in order to explain this w r orld. 
But this tautology on being made manifest is 
given up and the law that produces its variety 
is seen to be the really present law that pro- 
duces the really present variety of phenomena. 
The homonymous repels or dirempts itself (sich 
von sich abstosst, oder sich entziueit) and the 
heteronymous attracts (sich anzieht). The like 
becomes unlike and the unlike becomes like. 
This describes the nature of that which is pre-sup- 
posed as the ultimate ground of thing or force — a 
pure self-activity which Hegel names infinitude 
(Die TJnendlichheit oder diese absolute TJnrulie des 
reinen Sichselbstbeivegens) . 

This he identifies with thought-movement, the 



78 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 






"notion" (Begriff), the universal which is par- 
ticular and singular because it is a universal 
which determines itself. It is the simple essence 
of life (Der absolute Begriff ist das einfaclie Wesen 
des Lebens). 

Hence the understanding reaches the truth of 
phenomena. It discovers it to be a self-determin- 
ing activity like itself. A like which repels it- 
self into opposition — a self that opposes to itself 
an object ; an unlike that identifies itself with 
its opposite unlike — a self that cognizes its 
object, recognizes itself in it — looks out upon a 
world » of difference and by reflection upon it dis- 
covers it to be a phenomenal manifestation of 
reason, of rational self-consciousness. 

Here Hegel comes to use the word Begriff 
(English "concept" 'or logical "notion") in 
the peculiar sense that gives rise to more seri- 
ous misunderstanding of his system than any 
other cause. He falls into the habit of desig- 
nating this idea of self -activity {causa sui) as 
"Begriff" in all his works subsequent to the 
Phenomenology. What led him to this was prob- 
ably the fact that he was struck with the consider- 
ation that logical notions have the characteristics 
of universality, particularity, and singularity, and 
that these three distinctions all belong to the 
idea of self-activity. As self-determining it is 
subject or universal, not yet being determined. 
As self-determined, it is object and in oppo- 
sition to itself as determining ; antithesis gives 
specialization or particularity. But as the 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 79 

self, identical in both of these and including, 
therefore, universality, or the possibility of all 
determinations, as well as particularity or actual 
determinateness, it is individual or singular. 

In the individual, the universal and the partic- 
ular are both contained as moments. But these 
aro both modified in such a manner that neither 
is just the thought that it was as a category 
by itself. Universality is not merely the possi- 
bility of all modifications, but is in relation to 
the special determination of particularity as a 
negative to it. It annuls the particularity as 
inadequate to the expression of its complete 
sphere, and thus appears in the role of the 
negative universal. The universal as the abstract 
category is not in the special phase of negation. 
Particularity, on the other hand, is not abstract 
particularity in this category of individual or 
singular. It has received the negation of the 
universal, and is not a mere particular opposed 
to possible other particulars ; but it is itself 
the entire sphere of particulars — the total sphere 
of possible particulars realized. The individual 
or singular is therefore the complete actualiza- 
tion of the universal in a total sphere of par- 
ticularity ; and the particularity by reason of 
its exhaustive completeness, which leaves no 
phase unrealized, is a complete realization of 
the universal. This perfect actualization is the 
individual or singular, and it may be seen by 
this that it is a good description of it to say 
that it is the identity of the universal and 



80 hegel's logic. 

particular — not their sum nor their dead unity, 
but their living unity, which results from their 
complete actualization through realization of pos- 
sibilities. 

"Begriff," or notion, is used, therefore, by 
Hegel in the sense of self-determining being. 
This use is similiar to Plato's use of the word 
"idea" as meaning perfect form. Hegel, too, 
may be said to use Begrifl to mean perfect form — 
i. e. the form that furnishes its own contents 
or matter, not a form externally imposed on 
some matter furnished for it. 

With the idea of self-activity as the origin of 
the entire phenomenal world before it, con- 
sciousness has become self-consciousness. . This 
means that it has ascended above the stadia of 
thought in which it contemplates a world of 
objects different from itself — a world of things 
or forces which are alien to mind, apparently 
independent of mind. It has discovered that 
every object is a phenomenon or system of ap- 
pearances, and that every phenomenon reveals 
a self-active being as its cause or noumenon. 
Hence a concrete identity has been reached for 
subject and object, and this*, identity is not a 
substance that transcends both but only material 
nature, and is affirmative of the determinations of 
the spiritual or conscious individual. 

This psychological study is a sufficient voyage of 
discovery for the first principle that Hegel adopted 
as the highest truth. He describes it (truth) in 
the chapter on Force and Understanding as the 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 81 

"Simple infinitude or the' absolute notion (Be- 
griff = self-determining being) which is the simple 
essence of life, the soul of the world — the universal 
blood, so to speak — which everywhere present is 
interrupted by no distinction and which is rather 
all distinctions as well as their annulment ; which 
pulsates within itself without moving itself and 
which vibrates within itself without ruffling its 
repose." He identifies this with thinking being — 
in reaching this insight into the world, conscious- 
ness becomes self-consciousness. 

Arrived at this point, what follows next ? Is not 
the Phenomenology concluded ? Not according to 
Hegel's method. He must now consider the ap- 
pearance this conviction of the identity of mind 
with nature's essence puts on in human history. 
If this theoretical conclusion just drawn from 
psychological investigation is a true one, it must 
have made its appearance long ago in the world as 
a practical conclusion. For man discovers the 
great truths of his nature in many other modes 
than by logic and scientific investigation. There 
are poetic and religious seers through whom these 
truths are disclosed as divine revelations. 



CHAPTER VI. 

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY — THE ETHICAL WORLD. 

HAVIXG arrived at the standpoint of self- 
consciousness, what next ? This stand- 
point we remember is the insight or conviction 
that all possible objectivity is grounded on a con- 
scious absolute. This being the case, the con- 
sciousness of the individual who is making this 
voyage of discovery now recognizes consciousness 
everywhere as its object, and is self-consciousness, 
which is the topic of the fourth division of the 
"work. Under whatever alien guise the object ap- 
pears, it is at bottom the appearance of self-activ- 
ity as mind. This is the insight which Hegel has 
reached by considering the nature of things to be 
manifestations of force, and all forces to be phases 
of self-activity. Only self-activity can be inde- 
pendent being, or as Hegel calls it " being-in-and- 
for itself." All dependent being gets its qualities 
and attributes from its relation to others. 

In this Phenomenology the necessity of self- 
consciousness is seen as the true and final view of 
the nature of objectivity. We have reached that 
which is sufficient for itself and does not need any- 
thing else to explain it, hence, we can go no far- 
ther with the object of consciousness, strictly con- 
sidered. The object which at first appeared as 

82 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 83 

the opposite of the subject, now is recognized 
to be the same in essence — to be a subject in short, 
or rather to be subject-object. Consciousness 
has - therefore become self -consciousness. Here 
he has arrived at the theoretical conclusion of 
the Platonic philosophy. All reality is at bottom 
the manifestation of ideas. Ideas are self-activi- 
ties, independent (absolute) beings. Moreover, as 
heretofore remarked in this book, "ideas" are 
intellectual activities {Laics, Book X). In Plato 
the human mind gains the insight of self -con- 
sciousness. But the conviction of self-conscious- 
ness was attained long before by the Hebrew who 
saw that "In the beginning God (an imma- 
terial spirit) made the heavens and the earth." 
Nothing material, nothing in time and space could 
possibly be independent or absolute being, accord- 
ing to the view of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
All is the "work of His hands," and is dependent 
on His will. So, too, the Greek popular conscious- 
ness as shown in its mythology has the same con- 
viction. It held that all material reality is only a 
manifestation of spiritual powers, all movement 
being caused by conscious energy. Hence it peo- 
ples all nature with spirits and makes the visible a 
veil behind which is an invisible kingdom of 
spirits. 

But this conviction of self-consciousness is some- 
thing far below the insight of self-consciousness: 
hence the course of human history and its slow 
progress for three thousand years gradually ascend- 
ing from the conviction to the insight. Conviction 



84 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

is an insight of the social whole, the aggre- 
gate thought of the entire community reaching a 
conclusion which the average individual can only 
share in through faith in the fundamental religious 
dogma of his peojjle. 

At this point in his "Voyage of Discovery" 
Hegel must have seen the principle of human his- 
tory which he enunciated afterwards in his lectures 
on the philosophy of history : " The world history 
is the onward progress of man into the conscious- 
ness of freedom." 

The Phenomenology proper ends with the stage 
of self-consciousness, as we see in the third part 
of Hegel's Encyclopedia, where we find that 
Eeason (Vernunft) is the next stage following 
completed self-consciousness, and that this stage 
of " Eeason" is developed under the head of 
"Psychologies In this, his voyage of discovery, 
however, he includes also the standpoints of Eea- 
son (V) and Spirit (VI). But this is only a matter 
of nomenclature. At a later period The Philoso- 
phy of Spirit was thought by him to be a better 
name than Phenomenology of Spirit 

IV. Self-consciousness. To return to our ques- 
tion, "what next?" we must see that our in- 
vestigation takes a practical turn here. The 
individual comes to the insight that mind or 
conscious being is the essence or "thing-in-itself" 
underlying phenomena. What will the individual 
do when he arrives at this conviction ? Hegel 
sees quite clearly that he will adopt an individual- 
istic standpoint and assert the world to be the 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVEKY. 85 

mere non -substantial phenomenon of himself as 
essence. In other words,, he will deny the essen- 
tiality of other beings, including his fellow-men. 
A self is necessarily transcendental ; that is to say 
it is not and cannot be a sensuously perceivable 
being : it is an energy that can only be perceived 
in itself by introspection as feeling, thought, or 
will. Individualism asserts itself as the only self, 
the essence. "The world is its oyster." Conse- 
quently Hegel takes up the historical phase of 
individualism first. It is of course a perpetually 
recurring phase, but its typical history is always 
the same. First there is an attempt to subdue 
all other being and make it subject to its own 
will. In this struggle it attacks other individ- 
uals of its own species, and death, or its alter- 
native, slavery, ensues. This results in the first 
social relation, namely "dominion and servi- 
tude/' that is to say, slavery, which has its own 
dialectic resulting in a consciousness of ethics, 
as we shall see later. Hegel does not attempt to 
write a real history, but only a typical history of 
man — or rather an evolution of each principle of 
history by itself. These principles are arranged 
in the order of their evolution one from another. 
But in real history one of these principles is 
not exhausted before another principle is begun. 
Each principle being established calls into being 
another comparatively higher principle, whose 
growth is conditioned upon the former principle, 
and yet reacts upon its growth. Thus the family 
institution rises and directly after it the institution 



86 



HEGEL S LOGIC. 



of the State appears in the form of the tribe. 
Family morality developing through the reacting 
influence of the tribe, the tribe becomes gradually 
a better form of social organization and finally be- 
comes a nation. But a certain development must 
be attained before a given principle may give rise 
to its sequent principle. The idea that nature is 
the revelation of a self-conscious absolute must be 
reached before a science of nature can arise which 
will address itself to the work of invent orvinsr the 
orders of being. Aristotle necessarily comes after 
Plato, and no natural science, properly speaking, 
arises among the Asiatic peoples. 

The conviction of self -consciousness, which I 
have spoken of as arising with the Greeks and He- 
brews, is therefore not the first appearance of 
self -consciousness according to Hegel, but rather 
a quite advanced stage of it, a stage in which 
it appears as a spiritual religion. It must appear 
in the stage of fetichism, and begin its evolution 
with the cannibal tribes, even. Hegel will draw 
his illustrations of this evolution from, the earliest 
and from the most recent epochs of history, as 
we shall see. 

Hegel had been greatly interested in the 
French Eevolution and its new consciousness of 
the rights of individual men. His own voyage 
of discovery had to solve for him the environ- 
ment of institutions surrounding him, as well as 
discover a philosophical first principle. Accord- 
ingly he puts his first principle to the test by 
interpreting the course of human history and 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 87 

deducing the consciousness of his time, in its 
political, ethical, religious, and scientific phases. 
Let us now review more in detail this his next 
question, which as already stated is : "What does 
the instinctive conviction of self -consciousness that 
it is at one with the substantial might of the 
universe produce?" Its consciousness that it is an 
essence appears first as an assertion of indepen- 
dence, an independence that proves all else to 
be merely phenomenal. It enters into life and 
death conflict with its fellow-man. The certitude 
of self as essence can only be attained by re- 
nouncing life and its enjoyments. To enter on 
the death struggle tests the sincerity of this 
renunciation. If it prefers life to independence, 
then it becomes a slave. Hence the first insti- 
tution arising after this conviction of essentiality 
is attained, is that of slavery. One reflects on 
the fact that in savage tribes this is the char- 
acteristic condition. This is the lowest stadium 
of human history, but it has its uses in prep- 
aration for further developments. Hegel makes 
some interesting and valuable suggestions on this 
head, showing how the fact that the slave does 
not gratify his wants immediately from what is 
before him, but receives his food, clothing, and 
shelter as a gift from his master, although he, 
by his own labor, produces those things, develops 
ethical insight. The slave mediates his will 
through another, and begins the discipline which 
may lift him above a worse servitude to his 
passions and appetites. Even in modern civil- 



88 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

ization this discipline is retained as essential, and 
the system of industry demands of each man 
that he labor at some occupation which produces 
an article . for the market of the world and not 
for his own consumption. He shall receive for 
his own consumption, for the most part, the 
products of the labor of his fellow-men. This 
mediation is necessary. But there can be a 
higher freedom attained in stoicism, and the 
slave who withdraws into the depths of his soul 
away from the actual, and renounces his finite 
interests, realizes this higher freedom. \Skepticism 
in the ancient sense of the word, realized a still 
further emancipation from this dependence on 
external conditions. For it not only despised 
and renounced them, like stoicism, but it denied 
them essential existence. Here we see a new 
step toward the realization of the conviction of 
self-consciousness, that it alone is essence, and 
that the world is phenomenal in so far as its 
existences do not attain self - determination. 
Ethical maxims are invented by the soul in its 
state of stoical reaction against enslavement to 
arbitrary tyranny. In its discontent with the 
present world, the soul rises to the thought of 
an ideal state of existence, which it places in a 
future. The contemplation of the ideal inten- 
sifies the ugliness of the real, and the soul enters 
what Hegel calls the " unhappy consciousness," 
(das ungluekliche Beivasstseyn). The pain of 
the soul finds relief in earnest labor, which brings 
self-forgetfulness, and at the same time elevates 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 89 

to a higher consciousness of self in the fact that 
labor transforms the real into ideal patterns 
fashioned for it in the mind. Hence there go 
on two processes of reconciliation : (1) the re- 
nunciation of the self, and (2) the conquest of 
the world and the realization of one's ideal in 
it. There arises, gradually, a perception of the 
immanence of reason in the world. This con- 
viction gives rise to a new phase of intellectual 
history, namely Reason (V), which Hegel treats 
under three heads : (A) experimental observation, 
(Beobaclitende Vernunft) ; (B) the realization of 
the rational self-consciousness through itself ; (C) 
the individuality which has become real in and for 
itself. 

V. Reason. (A) Under the first of these heads 
(experimental observation), he indicates the steps 
in the process whereby man gains scientific posses- 
sion of nature, and discusses : — (1) the observation 
of nature ; the method of describing its qualities 
and properties; the discovery of its laws ; the rela- 
tion of the organic to the inorganic; teleology; in- 
ternal states and conditions manifested in the phe- 
nomena of sensibility, and reaction against environ- 
ment ; the relation of the internal to the external 
as producing organic shape ; the imposing of the 
organic form upon the external and inorganic ; the 
organic as genus, species, and individuality. All 
these things belong to observation of self -activity, 
under the form of life. (2) Observation of self- 
consciousness in its purity and in its relation to 
external reality; logical and psychological laws. 



90 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

(3) The observation of the immediate reality of 
self -consciousness, physiognomy, phrenology. 

(B) Under the second of these heads he considers 
the realization of reason through (a) the struggle 
between the seeking for pleasure and the necessary 
limits which it finds in nature ; the abandonment 
of pleasure as final aim and the seeking of happi- 
ness in the gratification of its heart which desires 
the good of its fellow-men; (b) the delirium of self- 
conceit that arises in the heart on meeting the 
limitations of nature and human institutions 
which prevent the immediate realization of its 
philanthropic impulses ; (c) the adoption of the 
law of duty and the practice of virtue, — the cor- 
rection of vice, but the preservation of respect for 
individuality, allowing individual freedom within 
the limits fixed by public law ; lastly, the revolt of 
the heart against the wickedness of the world, and 
its lament at the difficulties in the pathway of 
duty. 

(0) Under the third rubric (Individuality become 
conscious) he discusses (a) the realization of indi- 
viduality in the products of its industry, first con- 
sidering the question of disinterestedness of two 
kinds — actual, and unconsciously affected. To 
this he gives the surprising title : " The Spiritual 
Zoology " — or anthropology, the treatment of mind 
as a physiologic phenomenon [das geistige Thier- 
reich) and "self-deception or the interest of the 
object itself {die Sadie selbst)": i. e., a disinter- 
ested treatment of the business in hand. Much 
of this seems aimed at the conceits of the Romantic 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 91 



school of art and art criticism which exercised 
great influence in the early life of Hegel. But it 
is treated as though it were a necessary phase in 
the history of consciousness, because it was a phase 
that Hegel himself worked through. It is cer- 
tainly a prevalent phase in our time, (b) Law- 
giving reason and law-proving reason are the 
topics discussed next. The search for disinter- 
ested methods of production and criticism has led 
to (c) the discovery of the rational laws that 
govern objective production. 

At this point consciousness has reached an in- 
sight that will enable it to understand the uncon- 
scious development of reason in the shape of 
human institutions as well as the revolutionary 
reaction against them which sometimes happens. 
Here we discover Hegel's approach to the solution 
of the great event of his time — the French revolu- 
tion and the revolt of all Europe against insti- 
tutions. 

VI. Spirit, The sixth general division of the 
Phenomenology, therefore, is devoted to the con- 
sciousness of institutions ; and as institutions are 
the self-revelation of spirit or human nature, he 
names this division " Spirit " (der Geist). HegeFs 
distinction between the fifth stadium, "Reason" 
( Vernunft) and the sixth stadium, Spirit ( Geist) is 
this : Reason includes the discoveries of laws and 
systems of consistent activity and arrangement in 
the realms of nature and mind. It is the discov- 
ery of reason in nature and in the forms of mental 
activity. In all this the individual acts as individ- 



92 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 



ual, and his seeing and knowing is individual, 
even in the highest stage of knowing. "Spirit" 
(Geist) names the product of society and not of the 
mere individual. In social combination, according 
to Hegel, there is a higher manifestation of intelli- 
gence and will, than in the mere individual, and 
he calls this manifestation "Spirit/ 5 This is the 
great distinction made by the profound est of Swe- 
denborgians, like Henry James. 

"Self-consciousness/" the fourth stadium, is 
moreover distinguished from "Reason," the fifth, 
through the fact that it has not yet discovered its 
objectivity in nature and in other individual self- 
consciousnesses, but has merely a subjective con- 
viction of its own essentiality. It feels itself to be 
substantial, but it does not recognize others as sub- 
stantial nor perceive nature to be a phenomenal 
manifestation of an objective Reason. 

Restated with greater fullness, these three phases 
are to be distinguished thus : 

Self-consciousness (IV) is sure of its own inde- 
pendence of all else in nature and humanity, but 
does not recognize itself either in nature or in 
its fellow-men, hence it struggles to subdue any 
manifestation of independence in other beings. 

Reason (V) is the recognition of self-conscious- 
ness as realized in one's fellow-men and as mani- 
fested phenomenally in the laws of nature. (A) 
Hence, on this plane, the individual first finds 
it worth his while to take an inventory of nature 
and trace its fixed shapes (things) into phases of 
process (forces), and these again into total sys- 



, 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 93 

terns of forces (laws). It likewise takes an in- 
ventory of its own activities and discovers its 
own laws. Thus arise formal logic and psychol- 
ogy. It hungers and thirsts for the manifesta- 
tion of itself in the form of law. But we must 
not suppose that it does this because it knows 
that the essence of law is "the repulsion from 
itself of the homonymous and the mutual attrac- 
tion of the heteronymous" — that is only what 
tve found as the outcome of our psychological 
investigation, and having discovered it ive know 
that law is a reflection of self-consciousness. This 
statement of the essence of law expresses the dis- 
tinctions of force, but in the higher form as they are 
found in self-activity, wdiile force itself has only 
the form of finitude, or in other words the form of 
dependence on another. It is true, and must 
never be forgotten, that Force compared with 
Thing is an approximation to independent be- 
ing : for a force has energy of its own, although 
it can not manifest it without incitement and 
guidance from other forces. But Law is conceived 
as a guiding and inciting energy, or, at least, even 
in its shallowest form it describes the result of such 
an energy. 

This search for laws, therefore, which charac- 
terizes the activity of consciousness in the stage of 
"reason" as distinguished from the same activity 
in the stage " self-consciousness," so called, is a 
search for, and recognition of, the essential activ- 
ity of consciousness as the essence of the objective 
world. It is therefore a carrying out of self-con- 



94 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

sciousness to such a degree of completeness that it 
recognizes itself as the essence of the inorganic, 
organic, and intelligent phenomena of the world 
of experience. Hence it is still " self-conscious- 
ness, ".. but more properly "rational self-conscious- 
ness." 

(B) But this is only the first phase of reason, the 
theoretical phase ; a second phase, a practical one, 
is inaugurated by the will. As immediate indi- 
vidual filled with the conviction that nature is the 
phenomenal manifestation of the ego, and espe- 
cially that the body is a direct manifestation of it, 
it seeks pleasure as the harmony of the internal 
and external. For pleasure is this feeling of the 
perfect adaptation of the self to its environment, — 
the complete correspondence of internal and exter- 
nal, of desire and gratification. But here devel- 
ops a contradiction : this is the attempt to pro- 
duce the reality of reason by an act of the will, 
rather than to find it already existent, as the ob- 
serving reason did. In gratifying its appetites and 
passions it quickly discovers that there is a limit 
beyond which it must not go. The principle of 
the "golden mean" states the law of the maxi- 
mum of pleasure. But with this it becomes ap- 
parent that pleasure is not the highest principle 
because it contradicts itself and needs the princi- 
ple of renunciation in order to make pleasure at 
all persistent. On this standpoint it finds a 
higher pleasure in promoting the pleasure ^f 
others, and thus enjoying pleasure vicarious! v 
and by such means escaping the reaction which 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 95 

comes through external necessity. Hegel, as be- 
fore mentioned, calls this "the law of the heart/' 
i. e., the rule of life to make others happy and 
thereby become happy yourself. Here it must be 
noticed we still have the individual as the end and 
aim of reason : although there is altruism in this 
last result, yet its aim is individual happiness^ pro- 
duced through the spectacle of individual happi- 
ness and the consciousness of having co-operated 
to that end. 

But experience does not confirm this attitude of 
consciousness any more than it did the preceding 
one. The world is not adjusted to any such indi- 
vidualistic basis. Human institutions, at all events, 
are established on a different foundation. It is of 
no purpose for one individual to seek the pleasure 
of others and renounce his immediate pleasure 
unless all do the same. For he will behold the 
spectacle, not of persistence of pleasure, but rather 
that of pleasure as the vestibule and forecourt 
leading to pain, its opposite. Hence, in order to 
have this pleasure of the heart, or happiness, he 
must behold the same renunciation of immediate 
pleasure on the part of others ; and more than 
this, he must act to produce this renunciation and 
altruism in others. Hence the law of the heart, 
that it must produce happiness in others, now de- 
velops into the law that it must seek to elevate 
others out of the desire of pleasure. At first in 
the self-conceit of altruism, it had condemned the 
world and its institutions, because not altruistic 
according to its own standard. Becoming aware 



96 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

of the significance of its present endeavors,, it 
recognizes that it has arrived at a moral stand- 
point ; it finds the law of the heart not pleasure- 
seeking even for others, but rather the sacrifice of 
pleasure within one's self and in others. This law 
of sacrifice it names "virtue" and becomes virtue- 
seeker. 

In seeking virtue, it is ready to sacrifice all hap- 
piness and pleasure — in short, it is ready to sacri- 
fice its individuality and perform its duties for 
their own sake. With this it comes into conflict 
with the course of the world (tier Weltlauf) which 
prizes individuality and fosters it. Consciousness 
laments the depravity of the course of the world, 
and condemns it for not living up to the standard 
set for it by the virtuous individual. It rails 
against the men in high places, and explains the 
actions of rulers, priests, etc., through unworthy 
motives. But the course of the world goes on. 
It is altogether a matter of individual whim and 
caprice what constitutes virtue when it is opposed 
to the course of the world in this manner, except 
that it is essential that it should attack individu- 
ality. 

(C) But individuality sustains itself against this 
attack for the reason that this conceited virtue 
which attacks it is based wholly on the individ- 
uality that it attacks ; it sets up its individuality 
against the universe in the form of private judg- 
ment. But a new phase of consciousness appears 
now, which Hegel characterizes as "real individu- 
ality per se," and of which we have already spoken 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 97 

before as beginning with the strange feature de- 
scribed as "the spiritual zoology and the self- 
deception that arises concerning the objective." 
For it is no longer the delirium of self -conceited 
private judgment that sets up its ideal standard 
against the universe,, but it has discovered a sort 
of self-deception in regard to the objective — its own 
likes and dislikes have been imposed upon the 
objective. The ego has gone to the opposite of 
the previous extreme and now tries to find an en- 
tirely objective standard for its action and to act 
entirely from disinterested motives. It pretends 
to itself and to others that it acts not on account 
of any selfish interest, but solely on account of the 
"cause." Those who behold the deed, on the 
other hand, are also to judge it according to the 
standard of the object itself and not according to 
their own likes and dislikes — or at least are to 
make the claim to do so. This desire to be object- 
ive and the simultaneous discovery that after all 
subjective tendencies and capacities constantly mix 
with his work and also with the criticism of it, 
leads to the investigation of the real laws of ob- 
jectivity as they affect matters of morals, art, etc. 
This phase, Hegel calls "law-giving reason" (Ge- 
setzgebe?ide Vernunft). Again these laws or mere 
maxims need testing and sifting, so that real ob- 
jective laws shall be reached, and not the mere 
opinions of individuals. 

VI. Spirit. This movement is, therefore, an 
attempt to rise from mere subjective whims and 
caprices to rational necessity. The result is the 



98 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

discovery of the true constitution of reason, or the 
nature of things. Upon this is based the Ethical, 
properly so called. This, in contradistinction to 
that mere subjective virtue which was opposed to 
"the way of the world/' is not the creation of the 
individual as such, but the joint product of the 
community which organizes its convictions in the 
form of institutions. 

The ethical will realized in institutions is called 
by Hegel "Spirit" (Geist) in order to distinguish 
it from Keason, which is the individual discovery 
of the true and right. When this discovery is ac- 
cepted by the community it founds an institution 
upon it and thus makes it substantial. For it no 
longer depends upon the individual taste or pref- 
erence, but the institutions, organized aggregates, 
enforce on the unwilling individual a conformity 
to the rational laws which they affirm. 

This ascent from subjective truth and individ- 
ual standards of right to the organized standard of 
the social whole, and the view of the world which 
has been adopted by humanity, is the most im- 
portant step in Hegel's progress on his " voyage of 
discovery." 1. He proceeds to unfold Spirit or 
"Geist" as this moral standard set up by the social 
whole and organized into institutions : first, the 
family, second, the State. 2. Then he considers 
the spiritual element of education or "culture" 
(Bildung), in which the individual is prepared for 
this artificial world of institutions which embody 
not the individual will but the will of the social 
whole. In order that the mere individual may put 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 99 

off the " natural man " and put on the spiritual 
man, he must be educated to know the require- 
ments of the general will or the social standard 
of right and then to make it his own by habitual 
practice. He thus puts on the "new man." (a) 
But education, since it mediates between the nat- 
ural individual and the social individual, performs 
the office of taking the individual out of his fa- 
miliar or native state of mind and making him 
acquainted with something that is strange and 
foreign to him. Hence Hegel calls education or 
culture (Bildung) the self -estranged spirit (der 
sich-entfremdete Geist. ) Through self -estrange- 
ment the individual becomes ethical in the true 
sense. He gives up his inclination and adopts the 
prescribed forms. At first this is an act of obe- 
dience to an external mandate. But education 
gradually converts blind faith into "pure insight" 
(reine Einsicht) and the individual discovers his 
own rational necessity under the alien commands. 
In short, he finds the ethical laws reasonable, and 
therefore to be that which harmonizes with his 
own insight. He would announce these laws him- 
self if he did not already find them announced. 

Now, however, commences another subjective 
reaction. The consciousness has discovered that 
the requirements of the social order are binding 
upon it because they are reasonable and this at 
once relieves them of the form of alien constraint 
and reconciles them with individual freedom. 
The individual has reached his majority and is 
freed from external authority. Going over to an 



100 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

extreme, he at once declares his independence of 
all manner of prescribed laws and sets up a court 
of reason as the internal tribunal before which 
their validity shall be tried. Whatever commends 
itself to his reason shall be adopted, not for its ex- 
ternal authority, but because of its inward recog- 
nition. 

(i) This revolt against all external authority 
Hegel calls " Aufklarung" clearing-up, or eclair- 
cissement, or enlightenment, a word that suggests 
at once the French Eevolution. Consciousness 
clears up its doubts, becomes " enlightened/' turns 
the dependence on external guidance into self-reli- 
ance, "does its own thinking" and becomes "free 
thinking," as it loves to call itself. 

Enlightenment throws off allegiance to prescrip- 
tion and gets rid of the laborious self-alienation, at 
a blow. It develops rapidly the consequences of 
this standpoint, and arrives at a revolution against 
the established order. It repudiates the inherited 
wisdom of the race and sets up its individual opin- 
ion as the measure of all things. The old order of 
things resists this revolt, but is overcome. Then 
comes the terrible dialectic of its own deficiency as 
a universal principle, (c) All external obedience is 
gone, and all subordination of the individual to 
the will of the social whole, for that will is precisely 
what enlightenment has revolted from. But what 
is now left to mediate between individuals ? Each 
acts according to his own impulse and takes no 
care for the others. But the first result of this is 
that each cannot depend on the rest ; each dis- 



VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 101 

trusts the rest. Universal distrust reigns. The 
authority that is set up by the revolutionary party 
fears everything in turn and attacks it with sever- 
ity. It puts to death its enemies, and then begins 
to suspect its friends and guillotines them, too. 
This is the " reign of terror " thus deduced by 
Hegel. Absolute freedom culminates in terror 
[die absolute Freiheit unci der SchrecJcen). 

In this chapter Hegel's thought moves in a sub- 
tle current of ideas, using the categories of "pure 
will," "negative relation of the will to itself," " use- 
fulness" (as the chief category of enlightenment). 
The category of " usefulness," we are suprised to 
learn, contains the idea of the unity of thought and 
being. However, this becomes clear to us when we 
see that usefulness is the adaptation of something 
as means to the realization of a result beneficial to 
man. If all things in the world are useful ; if the 
inorganic is useful to the plant ; the plant to the 
animal ; and both plants, animals, and the inor- 
ganic, too, useful to man, and if this is essential to 
their very being ; then it follows that being is 
essentially dependent on an ultimate purpose, an 
ideal, and the ideal is the inward principle of 
being. Even if one were to say: "There is a 
struggle for existence and the fittest survives," he 
would still admit by his use of the term "fittest" 
that there is a real standard based in the nature of 
things which is the law of the totality of conditions, 
and when the individual thing, plant, animal, or 
man, conforms to this law of the being of the 
totality, he survives. 



102 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

3. The downfall of this stage of enlightenment 
is the reaction from the individual again. But it 
is a reaction from the ethical standpoint as well as 
the "enlightened self-interest" standpoint. It 
retires within to a moral view. This view of the 
world is the exact opposite of that view which 
looked upon the world as a supreme adaptation in 
the form of usefulness. This moral reaction finds 
the world unfavorable to the virtue of the indi- 
vidual. Instead of prosperity, the virtuous are 
rewarded with the guillotine. But this moral will 
has the advantage over that former conceited vir- 
tue which reacted against the pleasure-seeking con- 
sciousness. It has before it the dicta of the ethi- 
cal consciousness of the social whole, but notwith- 
standing this it does not yet fully take it up into 
its present view. In this instance it tends towards 
quietism, purism and separation from the vulgar 
world. Mystic piety — which, however, revels in 
the divine contemplation with a sort of esthetic 
sensuality — cuts a sorry figure when it is brought 
face to face with the repenting sinner. To hold 
itself aloof from him is to be hard-hearted and to 
become wicked itself. For it must pardon the 
wicked who confesses his sins and repents of them. 
Hegel expands on this topic, for the power of ne- 
gating negation which the soul possesses in that it 
can renounce within itself the negative or wicked 
deed that it has done, and hate it, gives us a won- 
derful glimpse of its transcendent nature. The 
forgiveness of the repentant elevates us above the 
ethical sphere to that of religion. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY — RELIGION. 

RELIGION is the fifth general topic of the 
Phenomenology according to Hegel's division. 
Consciousness, self-consciousness, reason, spirit, 
religion, and absolute knowing are the rubrics 
of the entire work. But if we count the three 
states of consciousness, namely: (a) sensuous cer- 
titude, (i) perception, and (c) the understanding, 
each as a general topic, religion is the seventh. 
Under this seventh head he gives a succinct crit- 
ical history of religion, discussing the stages of con- 
sciousness which recognize the absolute or divine, 
first in nature-religion — fetichism and the like 
— second in art-religion, and third in revealed 
religion (Offeniare Religion — revelate rather than 
" revealed " — signifying not so much that its script- 
ures are divinely inspired, as that they make 
known a revealed God whose nature is throughout 
an imparting and participating nature — one that 
makes a revelation of Himself to his creatures and 
does not hold Himself aloof in utter inscrutability 
as the pantheistic " nature-religions" teach). 

1. Hegel traces the process of nature-religion 
with its divine in the heavenly bodies, in plants, 
and animals, up to the Egyptian cultus which rev- 
erentially builds eternal dwellings for the souFs 

103 



104 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

material encasing, the body. Engaged in architec- 
ture as its chief form of worship, it approaches art- 
religion and prepares the way for it. 2. He next 
traces the Greek religion, which worships the beau- 
tiful as divine, through all its stages. It learns to 
see the beautiful in its youth trained at the games. 
The national taste is perfected. Xext come the 
sculptors and fix in stone the graceful forms — or 
rather the ideals of these graceful forms — ideals 
which live in the critical taste of the people. 
Then epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry form a de- 
scending scale for the Greek mind by which it 
descends from its portrayal of the beautiful in 
external form towards the description of the in- 
ternal struggles of the subjective against the ob- 
jective and universal. First there are serious and 
earnest tragedies, and, by and by, comedies that 
whelm the divinely beautiful world under inex- 
tinguishable laughter. Faith has been destroyed 
and the oracles have become dumb. The religion 
of the beautiful passes away. 

3. Eevealed (offenhare) religion is the religion 
that reveals rather than is revealed, the religion 
of a self-revealing God. "Through the religion 
of art/' says Hegel, "spirit ascends from the 
form of substance to that of subject, for it 
produces the form of the subject [or of the con- 
scious being, man] and represents it as performing 
self-conscious deeds; — in the religions of feared 
and dreaded substance [pantheistic religions of 
the orient] self-consciousness is not preserved, and, 
in its blind faith, it does not yet recognize itself." 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 105 

" From substance to subject " is a great word with 
Hegel. He prized it as one of the most impor- 
tant statements of the apertju which he gained in 
his " voyage of discovery." It characterizes in a 
direct and striking manner the difference between 
the principle of the orient and that of the Oc- 
cident. Asia clings to despotic forms, because its 
highest principle is conceived as substance and not 
as subject; it conceives the absolute as a pure, 
empty infinite, devoid of all properties, qualities, 
and attributes. For it cannot discern any other 
alternative than finitude on the one hand or an 
empty infinite on the other. Europe conceives, as 
its idea of the highest principle, perfect form 
rather than perfect formlessness, perfect fulness of 
being, rather than perfect emptiness. 

With an absolute that lacks form there can be 
no explanation of finitude, nor any salvation for 
individuality ; it must all perish by absorption into 
the abyss of the absolute substance. 

But how can any such " perfect form " be pos- 
sible which is neither the absolute void nor the 
finite ? This is the very point of Hegel's discov- 
ery: It is pure "subject" or self-determination 
— the self -active, causa std, that which is its own 
object, — this is perfect being. Perfect self -con- 
sciousness is the Absolute. It eternally knows 
itself and thus eternally makes itself an object, 
but recognizing therein itself, it elevates the ob- 
ject into self-activity and independence. It thus 
forever "returns to itself from its other." This 
constitutes absolute subject : that which knows 



106 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

itself as object and recognizes only itself in its 
object. 

Subject, therefore,, is essentially self -revealing, 
while substance is the negation of all others or the 
reduction of clitferences and distinctions to nega- 
tive unity wherein all individuality is lost. Abso- 
lute subject makes of itself an object, and a gen- 
uine real object, not a mere seeming object. 
Hence it gives its own independence to its object 
and also its own self-activity to it. Hence the 
object is likewise subject. If not, the subject 
has not itself for an object, but only an alien 
object. But if the object is absolute, real sub- 
ject and independent, then the self-knowledge 
of the absolute results in origination of inde- 
pendent existence and is not only knowing but 
also creating. Here the insight of the Scholastic 
theologians is verified: "In Deo sit idem volun- 
tas et intellectus." The thoughts of the Absolute 
are real existences. 

On first consideration one would be apt to say: 
" If all things are only the thoughts of God then 
all things are perfect, for He sees Himself in 
them." And this is certainly a logical objection, 
but it does not follow out the insight to the end. 
God's knowledge of Himself must create one per- 
fect being like Himself, who being creative like- 
wise must in His knowledge of himself create 
another perfect being. But being generated from 
the First, the Second's self-knowledge involves a 
consciousness of this derivative origin. But to be 
conscious of anything is to make it objective. 









THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 107 

The Absolute's knowledge gives independent ex- 
istence to its object ; hence the process of deriva- 
tion becomes existence of a created world gradu- 
ally rising from nothing towards absolutely perfect 
form. 

In the Second Person all derivation has been an- 
nulled in infinite past time by the fact that perfect 
form is attained — pure self-determination in the 
form of a will that is one with the intellect. 
Hence the world of finitude is not the first act of 
the Absolute, but rather the second act, and the 
second act because of the recognition on the part 
of the Second Person of His derivation from the 
First Person. For it is the knowledge of deriva- 
tion which creates a world of finite or derivative 
beings. The Second recognizes His timeless past 
derivation — His eternal begot tenness, so to speak — 
and thus creates a finite but progressive world, de- 
veloping from below into higher and higher forms. 
The second Perfect Being moreover knows His 
own perfection but recognizes it as the summit of 
a progress from pure objectivity or empty passiv- 
ity, the bottom of the process of derivation, up 
to self-activity wherein all derivation is annulled 
and pure spontaneity and freedom reached. Trac- 
ing back, as it were, the derivation of Himself as 
a presupposed eternally past act, He perceives the 
First and inspires the Third, the summit of a 
created universe. He recognizes the Father and 
the Father recognizes His recognition. Thus the 
Third may be said to be the Procession of eter- 
nal Love, the mutual recognition of the First and 
Second. 



108 hegel's logic. 

In this insight the world of fmitude is seen as a 
product of grace — for it is a free gift of inde- 
pendent existence where none was deserved. The 
imperfection attaching to fmitude does not forfeit 
this gift of grace. Self-activity increases it (the 
gift of grace), for by self -activity it progresses 
towards the perfect form and becomes more inde- 
pendent and at the same time more in the like- 
ness of the Absolute and hence more in unity with 
Him. 

This First Principle is the goal of Hegel's Voyage 
of Discovery. It is seen to be the ultimate be- 
cause it explains all and itself too, and needs 
nothing else to explain it. 

This First Principle is found clearly revealed in 
religion. But it is not reached in the religion of 
substance. Only the religion of subject, or that 
which makes the Absolute to be subject and object 
of Himself — or self-conscious person, reveals this 
ultimate presupposition of all being and all 
knowing. 

Hence Hegel finds in Christianity the explicit 
recognition of a self-revealing God and hence sees 
in it the religion that demands on the part of its 
followers not a blind faith, but an enlightened 
faith, in short a knowledge of God. For if God 
is revealed, He is to be known as well as feared. 
In fact, to substitute reverence for fear (as Goethe 
hints in the Pedagogic Province) there must be 
knowledge. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY — ABSOLUTE 
KKOWDSTG. 

HEEE is the transition to the eighth part of 
the Phenomenology, the absolute knowing. 
The content of the revealing (offenbare — self-evi- 
dent) religion is the Absolute Spirit, but in so far 
as it gives to this the forms of the imagination, or 
pictures it in the fancy, it does not attain com- 
pletely the adequate presentation of what it re- 
veals. The demand of this religion of revelation 
is that God shall be revealed ; and the Absolute 
can be revealed only to the adequate stage of con- 
sciousness, that namely w T hich can think the 
Eternal Being in His eternal self-activity. Such a 
stage of thinking we found developed out of the 
understanding when it conceived force and law as 
totality — then it reached the idea of self-determi- 
nation or subject-objectivity (as Fichte and Schel- 
ling called it, to name it as an activity which 
assumed the form of subject and object). That 
which is subject and object of itself is personal. 

The consciousness may have before it this con- 
tent in two forms — in other words it may have 
this Absolute Person as object in religion and also 
in philosophy. In religion, Hegel finds that there 
is a difference between the immediate expression, 

109 



110 hegel's logic. 

and the true meaning; — religion expresses this pro- 
foundest thought by means of a symbol so as to 
address its doctrine to the uncultured mind. A 
symbol has two senses, an immediate or literal 
sense and a figurative or spiritual meaning. 
" Consciousness/' in Hegel's technical use of the 
term, means that form of knowing which knows 
its object directly and does not go behind it for a 
deeper signification. But " self -consciousness " 
technically means the knowing which reaches the 
ultimate truth underlying objectivity, and this 
truth Hegel has proved to be the absolute self- 
activity in the fopm of subject and object of itself 
or self-consciousness or person. This, in fact, is 
named the stage of self-consciousness because it 
penetrates the disguise of objectivity and discovers 
itself underneath it and hence knows itself as the 
truth of the object. Since religion recognizes 
this only symbolically or under the guise of an ex- 
istence that has an immediate existence not at one 
with this spiritual significance, it has not yet 
reached the highest form of consciousness. Any 
difference between form and content occasions the 
dialectic procedure. In other words, such differ- 
ence between form and content indicates an un- 
completed process of adjustment, and the presence 
of an activity which results in change. The in- 
complete penetration of the material by the spirit- 
ual is the occasion of the continuance of the process 
of rendering the revelation more complete. The 
spiritual presses through the symbol towards a 
more complete revelation of itself — towards a 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. Ill 

knowing which sees the pure spiritual truth di- 
rectly and not through ambiguous symbols that 
have besides the spiritual meaning a literal mean- 
ing antagonistic to the former. 

Hence Hegel concludes that besides the religious 
form there is a higher form of expression of the 
same truth — namely, the expression in pure 
thought. 

What is this pure thought in which is to be 
sought a more perfect statement of truth than by 
means of the symbol ? The answer to this ques- 
tion is Hegel's Logic. 

A symbol cannot be a definition nor can it be 
dealt with syllogistically, because it does not dis- 
tinguish the phases of universal, particular, and 
singular, and therefore does not admit of any sub- 
sumption of one term under another. The sym- 
bol confounds in one term the universal and par- 
ticular. Although "when embodied in a tale the 
truth* may enter in at lowly doors/' yet it does not 
enter in appareled in its own native light, but dis- 
guised in a peasant's garb or hidden in a material 
vesture, which is not the truth itself, but some- 
thing else. 

But, asks the mystic, is not all language a sym- 
bol ? Is not the highest and most adequate form 
of speech poetry, which is a conscious and pro- 
fessed symbol ? Human consciousness answers 
this question in the negative, but with qualifica- 
tions. The beginnings of language are symbolic. 
The metaphor is used at first but it soon ceases to 
be a metaphor because its tropical or spiritual 



112 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

sense becomes the immediate sense, and the literal 
or material meaning is lost altogether. The word 
at first was a symbolic term because it had a direct 
sensuous import and an added spiritual one. By 
constant use in the symbolic sense, the immediate 
sensuous import fades away and the mind goes at 
once to the spiritual thought upon the sight of the 
word. The word then ceases to be a symbolic term 
and becomes a conventional term. The symbolic 
term has not a definition but a parallelism or corre- 
spondence between literal and spiritual meanings, 
both of which are retained as valid. Each import 
stands in the way of a definition of the other. 
" Bossuet was the eagle of eloquence" — what is 
the definition of "eagle" here? The definition 
would contain a hundred items, two of which are 
strength and daring and a third is high-flying or 
soaring. Strength and daring express abstractly 
their meaning without reflection from the surface 
of a particular object. But "soaring" has a 
jDhysical meaning that has to be translated into a 
spiritual meaning before it can apply to eloquence. 
In abstract terms it implies the region of light and 
clearness of seeing at a single survey a multitude 
of details in their connection. It implies a greater 
degree of universality. Some persons will find 
the symbolic term " eagle " to express one thing 
and some another, but no one will be sure of the 
meaning of the author of the expression. 

This is no harm, but rather an advantage in 
poetry and eloquence. In science and. philosophy 
and theology, however, it is a disadvantage. 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVEKY. 113 

The question is not one of discovering a form of 
expression that shall take the place of all others, 
but rather to find all the legitimate forms of ex- 
pression and not omit any, and, on the other hand, 
to discover in each its perfections and imperfec- 
tions. To discover that the philosophic form of 
knowing is higher than the religious form of know- 
ing does not signify that philosophy itself is a 
higher spiritual activity on the whole than religion, 
still less, that philosophy can be a substitute for 
religion, or for art, or for ethics or jurisprudence. 
There is the suggestion, however, that the philo- 
sophical knowing may reinforce religion, art, 
ethics, and jurisprudence by substituting its more 
adequate comprehension for the more feeble intel- 
lectual apprehensions that enter those spheres as 
constituent elements. To reach the insight into 
self-determination as underlying force and law 
does not imply the further disuse of sense-percep- 
tion. But it does imply that the consciousness 
that has become self-consciousness shall in its use 
of sense-perception so reinforce it by thought that 
it shall become rational, scientific observation in- 
stead of mere animal perception. So the specula- 
tive insight into the First Principle either supports 
or supplants that portion of religion which in- 
volves the insight into the nature of the divine. 
For, notwithstanding religion provides for imper- 
fect intellectual culture by minute prescription of 
ceremonial and an educated priesthood to expound 
the application and concrete meaning of the sym- 
bolic statements, yet even the highest religion be- 



114 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

comes a "nature religion" or fetichism to the mind 
without intellectual education. The stage of mind 
that cannot think the objective essence under a 
higher form than "thing "■ will have a tendency to 
make fetichism out of every religious doctrine. 
Again, the stage of consciousness that is involved 
in the conception of Force (and dependence or 
relativity) will think the divine nature as an in- 
scrutable, negative power which does not admit 
the approach of any finite beings to its purity. 
This is pantheism. It conceives all determination 
whatever — self-determination included — as finitude 
and evil, and the Absolute as an abstract essence 
pure of all distinctions whatever. The Christian 
theism, finally, which ascribes personality to the 
Absolute, can be adequately seized only by the con- 
sciousness that possesses intellectual insight into 
the spiritual nature of the First Principle that is 
presupposed by all existence — material as well as 
spiritual. 

The doctrine that God is incomprehensible, 
strictly adhered to, leads to pantheism, for it de- 
nies the possibility of the revelation of God's na- 
ture to man. Certainly there can be no revelation 
of truth to a being incapable of comprehending it. 
The common form of this statement of agnosticism 
takes the plausible ground of the quantitative infin- 
itude and argues that because knowing is a process 
of becoming — a growth from more to more — that 
it will always remain capable of increase; and hence 
that it will always remain imperfect; hence again 
that it can never know the Absolute,, for a relative 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 115 

perfection is imperfection. Were this pertinent 
to the question it would establish much more than 
the barring out of human reason from matters of 
religion and the annihilation of philosophy; it 
would of course destroy the possibility of a true 
religion based on a revelation of the divine. 

It is fortunate, therefore, for religion as well as 
for philosophy that there is a knowledge of the 
Absolute possible. This quantitative argument 
of agnosticism rests upon the standpoint of the 
idea of divisibility, as will be seen further on in 
the discussion of the idea of quantity in the Logic. 
The agnostic theory considers that the idea of the 
Absolute involves completeness and totality, and 
therefore infinite application to details. On this 
definition of the Absolute the possibility of its com- 
prehension is denied. For according to that, to 
comprehend a principle or being must mean the 
application of it to the infinite details to which it 
is related; to comprehend a universal term would 
demand that the individuals falling under the gen- 
eral term should each be seized in a distinct and 
separate thought. There is no comprehension ex- 
tant according to this view of the case. No one 
can comprehend movement, because it is impossible 
to form a mental picture of each of the infinite 
number of points successively occupied by the 
moving object. It is just as impossible to com- 
prehend the finite as the infinite according to this 
fantastic definition of comprehension. There is 
no finite that we cannot divide ad infinitum in 
thought. 



116 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

But comprehension signifies,, strictly speaking, 
the grasping together of individuals in their 
generic principle— the seizing of their unity in the 
sense of a productive energy capable of produc- 
ing the multitude of individuals; it is this which 
gives comprehension. To comprehend means, 
therefore, to see a principle which contains energy 
and directive power. Given the creative or gen- 
eric energy and the individuals are given in their 
indefinite multiplicity. The comprehension of 
one unit of space is the comprehension of all units 
of space, for they are all alike. It is just as easy 
to comprehend a mountain of sand as a bushel, or 
a grain. Quantitative repetition is indifferent to 
comprehension. 

The comprehension of the Absolute implies that 
there shall be insight into the principle presup- 
posed by the existence of a world of finite beings. 
Such a comprehension is implied in all philosophy 
and in all religion. Philosophy, for instance, is 
that kind of knowing which attempts to refer all 
things to one principle. If it says w T ater, air, 
matter, force, or mind is the one principle, it is all 
the same so far as this fundamental assumption 
is concerned. The principle (a or.#) assumed 
to explain the universe is asserted to be the 
origin whence proceeds all the variety extant. 
Since the origin gives rise to all, without itself 
being originated through another, it follows that 
it is assumed as a self -active principle. It pro- 
duces all individuals that come to be and destroys 
all that perish. In the presence of such a first 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 117 

principle there is no multiplicity or variety extant 
whose comprehension is different from that of the 
first principle in and for itself. 

So, too, in religion in general, a supreme being is 
revered ; his nature is taught and learned for the 
sake of practical religious life as well as for re- 
ligious contemplation. In the lowest form of 
religion the Absolute is thought to be a thing or a 
system of things : the sun, the moon, the thunder- 
bolt, or a fetich. In so far as the religious con- 
sciousness is present with it at all, there is present 
with it in some form the conception of a unity 
transcending the multiplicity of things and pos- 
sessing power over them. Reflection on the power 
elevates the consciousness to a higher stage in 
which it conceives a pure force or power distinct 
from its manifestation in sun, moon, or thing. 
The thought of a unity transcending the multi- 
plicity of things in the world is an act of compre- 
hension, for it seizes the unity above the things 
and apart from which the things do not possess ex- 
istence. The unity contains their explanation and 
thus comprehends them, and the insight into this 
absolute unity is an absolute comprehension. If 
the absolute unity conceived omitted some objects 
of the universe as inexplicable by the unity, then 
it could be said that its comprehension is incom- 
plete. The comprehension of Ormuzd in the Per- 
sian religion is an imperfect comprehension be- 
cause Ormuzd does not comprehend the total abso- 
lute, since the Absolute is a dual principle of 
Ormuzd-Ahriman. 



118 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

Comprehension, therefore, it must be remem- 
bered, is not a movement from one to many, but a 
return movement from many to one through the 
idea of dependence and derivation. The goal 
reached, the dependent beings are taken up into 
their principle and comprehended. Any religious 
man will explain all things through God, and thus 
he assumes an all-comprehensive principle and sees 
its all-comprehensiveness. If it is demanded of 
him: "Show all the mediating steps through 
which the Absolute reaches each one of the parts 
of the universe/' he will reply: "I see that the 
One produces these and hence these are created or 
derivative beings one and all, com]3rehended in 
the One. Their mediation is a relative matter 
and not essential to the act of comprehension, 
for it does not concern the supremacy of the 
One, but rather the establishment of many, for 
the effort to understand mediation is an effort to 
see relative unities as ultimates. It discovers 
that this is dependent on that and that on 
something else, and inasmuch as this discrim- 
inating of one phase from another is an endless 
process because time and space are infinitely 
divisible as well as infinite in extent, I perceive 
or comprehend its impossibility of being com- 
pleted by an act of inventorying. But my per- 
ception of this impossibility as well as your per- 
ception of this impossibility likewise is an act of 
perfect comprehension because I see and you see 
the very necessary nature of all such mediation, 
or in other words we grasp it as a complete whole 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 119 

or totality. Xot merely is there one step of medi- 
ation behind this phenomenon, I know before I 
look to see the phenomenon that each and every 
phenomenon has an infinite series of steps of me- 
diation behind it, because I know the necessary 
nature of all phenomena conditioned by existence 
in time and space. More than this, I know that 
the mediation with its possibility of subdivision 
into an infinite multiplicity of steps is likewise 
only one step, one immediate act of the Absolute. 

If the religious consciousness is merely a passive 
recipiency of the revelation concerning the divine, 
it may perform ceremonies and repeat formulas of 
words and obey implicitly all external requirements 
of the government of the church; but it cannot 
inwardly respond to any religious ideas 'without 
activity of the intellect, although the theoretical 
apprehension is only a part of religion. 

Comprehension, then, does not refer to the de- 
tailed application of the principle to all possible 
individuals so much as to the insight that all pos- 
sible individuals are explained by it. The insight 
into the geometric theorems that define the nature 
of a triangle is a comprehension of that figure. 
This comprehension of the triangle is indifferent 
to the repeated application that may be made of 
it. The ratio of the hypothenuse to the perpendic- 
ulars of a right-angled triangle is comprehended 
when its universality and necessity are seen and 
no amount of application of the truth to particu- 
lar triangles can make it more or less a compre- 
hension. 



120 hegel's logic. 

To comprehend the Absolute means, therefore, to 
know the necessary presupposition of the world of 
transitory and limited things, and to see in it an 
adequate reason for the origin and destiny of them. 

Hegel in his Phenomenology finds absolute know- 
ing to be the presupposition of all the phases of 
consciousness that have appeared in history. For 
this remarkable work is an analysis not of history 
direct, but of the ideas that have moved at the 
bottom of the historic process. 

It is summed up in the following statement: 
The first principle of the world is found by a con- 
sistent philosophy to be a self-conscious absolute 
thinking being. Such a being has been revealed 
in the religion accepted by the civilized nations of 
mankind. But the process of reaching the insight 
into the necessity of such a first principle as well 
as the capacity even to conceive such a first prin- 
ciple when revealed implies the possibility of ab- 
solute knowing on the part of man. The first 
principle of the universe is an absolute knowing 
being; man is made in his image. 

The Phenomenology was upon its publication 
called by Hegel the first part of his system, con- 
taining the justification of his method; the second 
part was to be the system itself, contained in his 
Logic. But in later years he came to regard his 
Logic as not requiring the Phenomenology as a 
first part. The contents of the Phenomenology 
are expanded in the third volume of the Ency- 
clopedia into the philosophy of psychology, ethics, 
jurisprudence, art, religion, and philosophy itself. 



THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 121 

No one can study the Phenomenology without 
being impressed with its dialectic method, and the 
apparent or real connection between the topics 
there arranged in a series. It is easy to concede 
that Hegel has described his own voyage of dis- 
covery in it. First by itself at the beginning giv- 
ing us the psychological ladder to the standpoint of 
Begriff or causa mi; secondly, his historical ladder, 
on which he climbs up from the institution of 
slavery to the Christian church, and constitutional 
government, and to the idea of a self-revealing 
Absolute whose nature must be known through 
philosophy and logic. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HEGEI/S METHOD. 

HEGEL'S whole " Logic" is a refutation of 
first immediateness and a demonstration of 
the completeness and perfection of that final im- 
mediateness that comes of mastering the steps of 
mediation and removing them. Comparing medi- 
ation to the staging which the builder uses : the 
foundation does not need any staging; but it is 
no building, only the empty possibility of a build- 
ing. Then there is the process of building in 
which the staging has to support, piece by piece, 
one after the other every stone and timber that is 
built into the structure; this is the mediation. 
Finally the building is completed and the staging 
removed altogether, as a needless incumbrance. 
The building supports itself now. 

Applying this comparison, any idea of the mind 
when first seized is lacking in its relations to other 
ideas and its internal relations also are not seen as 
yet. This is the first immediateness, the idea 
without any mediation. Reflection on this idea 
discovers one by one its relations to others and to 
itself ; its structure is thus revealed. This act of 
reflection is the process of mediation — the building 
of the idea through the use of an external staging 

of other ideas. During this process the idea seems 

122 



HEGEI/S METHOD. 123 

altogether derivative and dependent on these rela- 
tions. But at the close of this process we arrive 
at the logical necessity of thought which originates 
and defines all these relations. All that was loose 
and external like a staging is now seen to unfold 
from the idea and the idea becomes for us the 
absolute. l3y the word absolute we mean that 
which is no longer dependent on others, but is 
itself the originating cause of all its belongings., 

In the ordinary idea of causality there is implied 
the idea of independent origination of changes 
and effects. A cause originates a change in some- 
thing else, and this change is the effect. If the 
supposed cause is discovered to be only a link in 
a chain of influence down which the causal im- 
pulse descends to the effect it does not matter. 
The supposed cause has been found to be a part of 
the effect, that is all. The change in both the 
effect and in the first supposed cause is produced by 
a true cause somewhere beyond them. Make the 
chain infinite if you please and you only multiply 
the effect and do not dispense with the cause. In 
fact the necessity for a cause becomes the more 
manifest the larger the effect. A smallest effect 
requires a real cause for its change. An infinite 
effect requires an infinite real cause. 

" Supposing that the series of effects forms a 
circle ; " suppose that the cause A is an effect of 
B ; the cause B an effect of C ; C again an effect 
of D ; D an effect of E ; and so on to the term Z, 
which is the effect of A, once more. Here is a 
circle of effects through which the causal energy 



124 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

runs and manifests its entire round of possibilities. 
But it is just as evident that the entire series from 
A to Z constitutes a chain of effects, as it was evi- 
dent that the infinite regressive series is a chain of 
effects. The cause that moves A is a real cause ; 
the cause that moves A, B, C, D, etc., to Z, is 
likewise a real cause, with a greater manifestation 
than that of the cause of A alone. And if we con- 
sider carefully this circular movement of causal 
energy we shall find self -activity or self-determina- 
tion. The circle begins and ends with the term 
A, and A may be said to initiate a series of changes 
which ends with the change of A itself. Hence 
A causes its own change by originating a series 
which results in changing it. Call the series X 
and the process may be described thus : A initiates 
a change in X and the change thus originated in 
X causes a change in A. Thus A changes itself 
by means of X. Here is mediation and also abso- 
luteness. When we consider A in its relations to 
X, or X in its relations to A, we have simple 
mediation and dependence. When we consider 
the whole movement we have self-relation and 
absoluteness. For the mediation X is traced back 
to A and forward to A again, and all is seen to 
belong to A. The mediation is the self-mediation 
of A. 

This consideration of causality is an example of 
Hegers method of refuting the pure immediate as 
well as the mediate and demonstrating the abso- 
lute mediation. The pure immediateness would 
be A, B, 0, D, etc., to Z considered by themselves 



HEGEl/s METHOD. 125 

and without dependence or derivation, or any kind 
of relation within or without. It is necessarily 
the attitude of the mind when it begins to con- 
sider anything and before it has discovered rela- 
tions of its object to anything else. It is the first 
stage of the mind in childhood. This immediate 
unrelated being is the great first principle discov- 
ered by the childhood of the race — the Supreme 
Being of Hindu Pantheism and of Buddhism. 
Under all names which oriental imagination in- 
vents for the description of the absolute is the idea 
of this same empty unity — and all difference and 
diversity is annulled and reabsorbed into its iden- 
tity. Variety of individuality is only a dream, one- 
ness is the true reality. Human personality is as 
unstable as the waves of the ocean. 

This absolute of the infantile thought of man- 
kind is the starting point of Hegel's Logic. Pure 
being is the empty absolute. But the method of 
his logic is to show the impossibility of such an 
absolute and its inferiority even to finitude and to 
transient things. In conclusion he shows how all 
things presuppose by their imperfect and change- 
able reality a higher reality, a real absolute, self- 
active and self-determined— an Infinite Creative 
Season in short. 

'Hence Hegel does not begin his logic with the 
true absolute but with its opposite, the Pantheistic 
absolute, and makes it the sole business of his 
"dialectic" to refute every possible shape under 
which it masquerades. 

^He arrives at an absolute self -activity of reason 



126 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

whose form is personality instead of empty indif- 
ference or formlessness. His philosophy is the 
precise opposite of Pantheism., The latter begins 
with finite things and exhibits their unsubstantial- 
ity and nugatoriness. Proceeding thence it estab- 
lishes a negative absolute which swallows up all 
individual beings, as the ocean swallows up its 
waves. Hegel begins by refuting this empty abso^ 
lute as the explanation of finite things and ends 
by showing that the true absolute that things 
imply is a creative Keason whose self -consciousness 
is the eternal origin of distinction, difference, and 
individuality, which is not again swallowed up 
into empty indeterminateness but is permitted to 
grow into divine likeness through its freedom — 
permitted also to grow demonic and to oppose the 
divine order y But whether good or evil the indi- 
viduality and independence is given uncondition- 
ally. This unconditional giving of independence 
to a creature is unthinkable on the basis of 
Buddhism or Brahmanism but is the true presup- 
position underlying European civilization, accord- 
ing to Hegel. Brahma or the Hindu absolute 
is the Pure Being of Parmenides and the first or 
simplest pure thought and hence the beginning 
of logic, but not its finality. 



CHAPTER X. 

HEGEl/S PUKE THOUGHT — TBEXDELEXBUBG'S OB- 
JECTIONS. 

THE Logic should begin according to Hegel 
with the most elementary pure thought and 
proceed to the highest and completest pure 
thought. It should begin with the simplest or 
first pure thought. Now, the question asked by 
the reader is: "What is pure thought?" The 
formal answer is : Pure thought is thought from 
which the entire content of experience has been 
excluded. This content may return into pure 
thought — that is to say, determinations may arise 
in pure thought — but it must never be found 
there as borrowed or received from experience, it 
must enter the system of pure thought solely be- 
cause it has arisen in the self-determination of 
pure thought. In other words thought devoid of 
experience., active solely by itself and for itself, 
contemplating its own activity, may discover these 
determinations as arising within itself a priori, 
but it has no right to borrow them. 

From this it is clear that the beginning of pure 
thought will have no predicate whatever that has 
arisen or can arise in experience. It will be 
utterly negative or indifferent as far as experience 
is concerned. If, however, it were the simple 

127 



128 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

opposite of experience, or to be defined merely 
as the negative of experience, it would imply 
experience just as much as not-A logically im- 
plies A. 

This first thought, in which nothing is bor- 
rowed from experience, is therefore the negation 
of all that can be found in experience, but it does 
not, in its form, state such negation nor have any 
reference to experience. It is the first self-activity 
of reason affirming itself before it affirms, recog- 
nizes, or identifies anything else. 

The first self-affirmation of an infant's reason 
would, of course, be unconscious. It would grad- 
ually arrive at consciousness through sense-percep- 
tion. But sense-perception is, as I have shown 
in another place,* an unconscious use of the three 
Aristotelian logical figures in the following order 
— second figure, first figure, third figure. The 
first act of perception recognizes the object and 
classifies it under an already known class in the 
logical form called the second figure; it then 
deduces by the first figure whatever is already 
known of the class as " anticipations of percep- 
tion" and verifies these by further observation. 
Then in the third figure it discovers new charac- 
teristics and divides the class into sub-classes. All 
this use of logical figures goes on in ordinary per- 
ception but is unconscious. When reflected upon 
of course it becomes conscious. In short the 
mind in perception moves, not from the individual 

*See further on my discussion of Hegel's treatment of the three 
figures of Aristotle's Syllogism. 



hegei/s pure thought. 129 

to the general, but contrariwise, by determining 
the general and forming sub-classes out of larger 
classes by the use of the third figure, in which the 
object of perception is the middle term. 

The first act of the mind whether in animals or 
in men is therefore an affirmation of self but 
without reflection and hence without conscious- 
ness. This furnishes the first category — that of 
being: I am. 

This simple self-assertion by which the most 
general category arises is not an abstraction nor a 
negation, but the primordial affirmation with 
which mind begins. It is the foundation of 
further perception. For all perception is a 
further determination or particularization of the 
general category — being. 

All experience is of particulars — special limita- 
tions in space and time. We do not sensuously 
perceive the absent and the past or future, but 
solely the now, the present to the senses. It must 
be here within the scope of perception moreover, 
or else we do not perceive it. Here and now are 
points in space and time. All experience then is 
definite limitation of being and being itself is not 
the content of experience. 

Now if we take away from experience all its 
definite contents, all the special limitations and 
individualizing elements, we have left pure being 
in general and nothing at all of experience 
remains. For pure being is only the pure poten- 
tiality or unlimited possibility of all perception, 
volition, and thought, which the Ego possesses. 



130 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

The Ego is pure being as the ground of all its 
experience. 

It is this view which makes Hegel say of Par- 
menides that his principle of pure being has great 
significance in the history of philosophy because 
it shows the first arrival of thought at a conscious- 
ness of itself in its purity. This view of its sig- 
nificance, too, leads Hegel to place pure being at 
the beginning of his logic as the first category. 
In the thought of pure being the mind frees itself 
from experience and seizes that thought which is 
the ground of experience and which makes experi- 
ence possible. K~ow if any further determinations 
can be made and other categories reached by the 
mind itself without borrowing from experience, 
we may form a list of categories which underlie 
experience and make it possible. In other words, 
we may discover and formulate the mind's contri- 
bution to experience. 

The mind possesses at least pure being as its 
own, for there is not a vestige of experience in that 
category — all the results of experience are nega- 
tions or limitations, or particularizations of being 
rather than affirmations of it. 

To omit the specializations of being is to omit all 
that is derived from experience and to have left 
only in our minds what is furnished d, priori as the 
condition of experience. To set up being as a 
first principle, or to worship Brahm as the 
supreme principle, is to transcend all experience — 
the former is a philosophic act; the latter a relig- 
ious act having the same import. 



HEGEI/S PUKE THOUGHT. 131 

In order to see how Hegel develops other ideas 
from this single a priori thought of pure being we 
must develop in another chapter what follows 
when we think of pure being and at the same time 
reflect on the thought of this thought. We then 
find in our thought of being also another determi- 
nation a priori which we can and must add to it 
because it is a deeper and clearer idea unfolding 
directly from the idea of being itself; not a deter- 
mination added to it by experience, but an idea 
unfolded from it deductively or analytically. 

Here we must protest that the ordinary meaning 
of deduction does not serve our purpose — nor does 
the word "analytically." AVe might say with 
more truth perhaps "synthetically," for the ideas 
that follow from reflecting on the pure thought of 
being are synthetic additions to being. It will be 
time enough to settle this question after we have 
in other chapters developed some of these ideas. 
Here, however, we must so far anticipate those 
developments as to use an example or two in 
order that we may consider the other side of this 
question of pure thought, to wit: the naming of 
the categories discovered. 

Suppose that we grant that by thinking being 
we may discover a priori another determination, it 
is conceded that we must identify or recognize 
this second idea as one named in language and 
well-known and valid in the history of human 
thought or else our deduction will seem idle and 
fanciful to us. Hegel named his second category 
Naught (JSfichts) and his third Becoming ( Wer- 



132 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

den). He did not invent new names for the 
thoughts which he saw originate from the thought 
of being. He recognized or identified these 
thoughts as those which experience had been using 
before. He used the names already familiar to 
experience in naming these ideas. 

It must be evident that Hegel in this logic of 
pure thought cannot suppose himself to repudiate, 
altogether, experience. For he identifies these 
products of his dialectic, these pure thought cate- 
gories, as the same with ideas long in use by the 
mind in its experience, and accordingly he gives 
them the old names being, nought, becoming, 
quality, quantity, etc. 

This naming proves that Hegel understands his 
logic to have two parallel lines of thought. One 
reflects upon the pure thought and discerns the 
determination implicit in being: the second line of 
thought compares this new determination with 
experience and discovers its identity with some 
category already used and named. Deriving thus 
the names of his dialectically discovered categories 
he shows the practical application of his logic to 
clearing up the problems of experience. 

Thus there is a line of a priori thinking and a 
line of a posterior thinking combined in one, in 
the logic. This has been taken for granted by 
Hegel without explicit mention. But the acutest 
critics of Hegel, like Trendelenburg, make much 
ado over the discovery of this empirical element as 
though it entirely invalidated Hegel's claim to 
proceed by pure thought. Where did Hegel 



hegel's pure thought. 133 

obtain these ideas of being, becoming, quality, etc., 
but from experience or else how does he apply to 
them these familiar names? Still more, how is it 
that he uses all such familiar terms as process, 
movement, relation, sameness, difference, etc. ? 
He evidently presupposes them as well known, 
and yet speaks of his system as not presupposing 
anything. Is being a "presuppositionless begin- 
ning" when his logic assumes all these ideas as 
well known in order to describe its dialectic? 

If a science of pure thought were to originate its 
language it would indeed be " presuppositionless " 
with a vengeance! Hegel did not anticipate such a 
misunderstanding of his views as Trendelenburg 
betrays by his criticism. 

As philosophy undertakes to explain what is 
given in experience by deducing it from a neces- 
sary idea, it must present the ideas in two forms : 
(a) as they occur in ordinary knowledge (b) as 
they develop logically from pure thought. The 
names are of course found in ordinary knowledge. 
Moreover the ideas of ordinary knowledge are used 
constantly as predicates to describe what is recog- 
nized in the pure thought. Hegel recognizes a 
determination of pure thought as a "process" or 
"activity" or "becoming" or "quality" and 
describes it by those words. His dialectic is a per- 
ception of the logical presuppositions implied in a 
category of pure thought and the recognition of 
them as the same categories that had been func- 
tioning in experience before. The marshaling of 
experience and its categories is of course taken for 



134 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

granted. The a priori deduction of categories 
would have no meaning without this. The logic 
of pure thought deduces the logical genesis of 
what had before existed in ordinary knowledge. 
By this, logic demonstrates its utility. It shows 
itself as the Science of Knowledge. Omit all iden- 
tifications of dialectic results with the results of 
experience and ordinary knowledge, and the expla- 
nation explains nothing to anybody. Moreover it 
is impossible to teach such a logic to others be- 
cause it would not translate any of its ideas into 
common ideas or into words current among men ; 
any words it used to describe its pure thought 
with, would imply the ideas and words of ordinary 
knowledge. But according to Trendelenburg this 
would be inconsistent with the Hegelian claim to a 
dialectic of pure thought which proceeds without 
presuppositions. Hegel never foresaw this objec- 
tion. Had he done so he would have taken pains 
to show wherein his method used both pure 
thought and empirical results — rinding the former 
in the nature of thought itself as purely a priori, 
and borrowing the other from ordinary knowledge 
for purposes of comparison, analysis, and identifi- 
cation with the results of pure thought. 

One should be very careful however to avoid the 
error of supposing that the expression "in expe- 
rience" means "from experience" and that to 
find an idea in experience proves that the idea is 
derived from experience, or from external percep- 
tion. On the contrary, all the ideas of pure 
thought enter experience from pure thought 






HEGEL'S PURE THOUGHT. 135 

alone. They are furnished to experience by the 
unconscious activity of the mind during sense- 
perception and subsequent reflection. 

The Hegelian logic thus has for its problem the 
explanation of that part of ordinary knowledge 
unconsciously added to it by the activity of 
thought itself. 

To sum up this chapter : 

1. There is at least one category of pure 
thought, namely, Pure Being, 

2. Hegel's logic proposes to show that there is a 
system of more determinate pure thoughts logically 
flowing from reflection on being and the activity 
of thought implied in thinking it. 

3. Such deduction in pure thought of new 
determinations is accompanied by comparison with 
experience and common knowledge with a view to 
identify the ideas of pure thought with ideas pre- 
viously known and named in experience. 

4. Trendelenburg's criticism of Hegel's use of 
ordinary ideas and names as predicates of his pure- 
thought results is not justified ; because such use 
does not prove that the pure-thought results are 
borrowed from common knowledge but only that 
pure thought deduces and thereby explains the 
ideas that are found in such ordinary knowledge. 

5. To be found in experience does not prove 
derivation from experience. All that can be de- 
duced from pure thought must have come into 
experience from pure thought and its unconscious 
action in sense-perception. 

Next we must inquire what Hegel's logic knows 



136 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

in advance of its final result — whether Hegel 
blindly followed Jiis method until it resulted in 
the last category,, the Absolute Idea (die absolute 
Idee), or whether he obtained an insight into this 
highest category as the absolute first principle and 
then by its light discovered the inferior categories 
and the dialectic that exhibits their defects, re- 
futes them, and shows the deeper ideas that un- 
derlie them. 



CHAPTEE XL 

THE THREE CATEGORIES OF HEGEL'S LOGIC, A^T 
OUTLINE OF PURE THOUGHT. 

THE three parts of Hegel's Logic treat respect- 
ively of Being, Essence, and Idea (Seyx. 
Wesen, and Idee), these being the three funda- 
mental categories of all knowledge and of all exist- 
ence. Being includes as sub-categories (a) qual- 
ity, (b) quantity, and (c) measure (Mams) together 
with their subordinate modifications. Essence in- 
cludes (a) Ground (Grand) or the categories of 
reflection ; (b) Phenomenality (Die Ersclieinung) ; 
(c) Actuality (Die WirMichheit). Each of these 
has subordinate categories, Under Phenomenality 
come the important ideas of Eorce and Law, while 
under Actuality come the more important ideas of 
Substance and Cause. Idea (Begriff or Notion) 
includes (a) subjectivity, (b) objectivit]^ and (c) 
The Idea. 

Briefly characterized, the category of Being in- 
cludes all those categories which lack mediation, 
or, rather, the expression of mediation. They 
especially do not express self-activity nor depend- 
ence on others, no matter how much they may 
imply these ideas as presuppositions. Though the 
thinking of them is seen to involve in the first 
place the idea of dependence and secondly upon a 

137 



HEGEI/S LOGIC, 



complete view the idea of self-activity to make 
them possible, yet this mediation is all suppressed 
and no consciousness of these ideas belongs to the 
stage of thinking whose highest category is 
Being. 

The category of Essence expresses reciprocal 
relation of dependence and ground. Something 
depends on something else and is only through the 
latter, while the latter supports the former and by 
this act of support of the dependent expresses 
itself or reveals itself. The phenomenal depends 
on the noumenal for its being while the noumenal 
depends on the phenomenal for its expression or 
manifestation. The cause uses the effect to mani- 
fest its own energy ; the effect depends on the 
cause for its being. In the very names of these 
categories of essence mediation is expressly pointed 
out ; just as for example the word positive points 
expressly towards negative. 

This category of mediation (essence) has, in 
Hegel?s mode of expression, ^arisen from being 
as its truth/' that is to say it has been found that 
the thinking of being involves mediation. Pure 
thought cannot think being without seeing the 
mediation that necessarily attaches to it. Ordi- 
nary consciousness is oblivious of the subtle con- 
structive process of mind that generates the ideas 
of pure thought and furnishes them to experience. 
AVe know objects of experience but we do not see 
the mental processes which render experience pos- 
sible and constitute as it were the very forms of 
thinking itself. But Hegel's logic is to show all 



THE THREE CATEGORIES. 139 

this thought process behind the ideas and exhibit 
the a priori synthesis by which we generate all 
these ideas seriatim, beginning with the most gen- 
eral (or extensive) and rising to the most concrete 
(intensive) — in fact rising from the idea of being to 
that of person. 

Mediation is "the truth" of immediateness 
because it is that which makes immediateness 
possible. The^ cause is the truth of the effect 
because it makes the effect possible. A mere 
effect is to us unthinkable without a cause. The 
cause on the other hand, though it implies an 
effect for its manifestation does not imply an 
effect as the ground of 'its being. We can think 
the cause by itself as self-related — as the origina- 
tion of energy — hence as causa sui (an expression 
which means self-determination) — the causa sui is 
the author or creator of its manifestations and 
does not need to borrow other things for a field on 
which to manifest itself. 

Being cannot be without mediation. Being is a 
phase of mediation. A phase is a part — not the 
whole — of a process. We shall see that being is 
that phase of the process of mediation where its 
self-relation is restored — this is the discovery that 
leads us out of the categories of being into those 
of essence. With this insight we can never more 
use a category of being without seeing at once the 
hidden mediation involved — that mediation is no 
longer "hidden" to us. Thereafter we think all 
categories as mediated and all categories to us are 
pnfpgories of essence. 



140' HEGEl/3 LOGIC. 

It is a great mistake to suppose that Hegel de- 
duces categories in his logic and after defining 
them "leaves them as valid in their sphere/* 3 It 
should rather be said that he explodes "their 
sphere" and proves that each and all of these cate- 
gories of being are partial phases, inadequate 
thoughts of what they attempt to comprehend. 
We may use those categories after we gain this 
insight into the dialectic of being, but we never 
suppose them to be adequate — we always add to 
them in thought what we perceive them to lack. 
In brief we translate them into categories of 
essence, 

A ready illustration of this difference between 
the mind under the illusion of being and the disil- 
lusioned mind that has arrived at the thought of 
essence may be drawn from the religious phases of 
consciousness. The unilluminated mind supposes 
that rocks, trees, houses, planets, suns, are all not 
only real but self-existent objects. He thinks in 
the category of being. The immediate is the true 
reality for him. But suppose that he happens to 
rise to the standpoint of the religion of East India, 
or to that of the Buddhistic, which is the same 
thing as regards the adoption of the standpoint of 
essence. 

There are many forms of this doctrine current 
among us at this time besides "theosophy" and 
the various modifications of mysticism which pre- 
vail. There is for example the scientific doctrine 
of the correlation of forces or the persistence of 
energy, which explains all things as manifestations 



THE THREE CATEGORIES. 141 

of forces and all forces as manifestations of one 
ultimate persistent force. It is true that some 
who hold the doctrine of the correlation of forces 
still hold on to the doctrine of the persistence of 
matter also. In doing this they still hold to the 
validity of the category of being although they 
have adopted also the category of essence. Matter 
is immediate being to those minds; force is media- 
tion. The category of mediation includes and 
transcends that of being and does not need it for 
the explanation of anything. Mediation produces 
the sub-categories of being as its phases. So, too, 
persistent force in its ceaseless play of special 
forces (heat, light, gravitation, cohesion, etc.) 
produces the special equilibria of force which we 
call things. A thing is a system of forces in 
static equilibrium, or since no things are perfectly 
static, but even the most enduring of things are 
in a process of change, we may say that things are 
temporary or transient equilibria of forces. 

Analyze the make-up of a thing and we find 
only tensions of force — its hardness, its weight, its 
shape, its color — in short all its properties are 
manifestations of different forces. 

When one thinks in the category of being he 
supposes matter to be the true reality and there- 
fore tries to explain force as a "property" of mat- 
ter. Underneath things he imagines smaller 
things of which they are composed. For him 
atoms or small particles constitute the ultimate 
reality of all, and all the differences that we dis- 
cover among beings are thus explained by composi- 



142 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

tion or combination and arrangement. The true 
beings are the atoms,, but the things as we see 
them are merely the aggregations and combina- 
tions of these atoms, and hence not the true 
beings, for we cannot perceive atoms by any of 
our senses. 

But the standpoint of persistent force and corre- 
lation, when thoroughly understood, dispenses 
altogether with the use of the category of thing 
and Ave no longer need atoms to explain things. 
For what is an atom but a centre of forces ? 
Things great or small are only centres of forces in 
equilibrium. Now stop for a moment and use this 
new category (force) just as pure thought uses the 
category of essence in place of being. AVhen we 
see things and beings of any sort we do not attrib- 
ute to them immediate reality any longer, we look 
behind them to the forces that originate and sus- 
tain them. To us things are no longer immediate 
independent realities but only appearances, only 
dependent results, only phenomena. They are 
manifestations of energies hidden behind them. 
Or more correctly spoken they are the appear- 
ances of forces revealed in them and not hidden by 
them. 

When we have the habit formed of regarding all 
immediate things as phenomenal manifestations of 
force rather than as independent things or mate- 
rial units, we have become used to the categories of 
essence and have dispensed with the categories of 
being. 

Again recalling the standpoint of Buddhism or 



THE THREE CATEGOEIES. 143 

that of Brahminism: All things of this world are 
looked ii230ii as illusory appearances — as dreams of 
the soul. The true reality is called Brahma, or 
Vishnu, or Purusha, or by some other name signi- 
fying the formless essence or the abstract sameness 
that underlies all particular individuals. Emer- 
son's Brahma is the pure essence that is one in 
all beings. 

" They reckon ill who leave me out ; 
When me they fly I am the wings, 
I am the doubter and the doubt, 

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings." 

All differences are superficial and illusory. 

" If the red slayer thinks he slays, 
Or he the slain thinks he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep and pass and turn again. " 

Let a person come out of the "common sense" 
that dwells in the secure possession of material 
things as the sole and ultimate realty, to the 
" theosophic " standpoint which, affirms the ulti- 
mate principle to be a formless, negative Might 
swallowing up all particular existences and he sees 
the world differently. All things somehow reveal 
to him their side of unsubstantiality and they all 
look transient and evanescent. They do not abide, 
they merely pass incessantly from one form to 
another. All things flow or become, said Her- 
aclitus, nothing abides. Here immediateness is 
denied and mediation is asserted as the true cate- 
gory. 



144 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

Turning from these illustrations,, which show 
how familiar this category of essence has become 
in our time, let us remark here that Hegel's logic 
shows us the various phases of the category of 
Being and the necessary transition out of it to the 
category of essence, thereby explaining this mys- 
tery of two opposed theories (a) that of matter and 
the static opposed to (b) the dynamic or the doc- 
trine of force. 

Just as necessary is the precedence of the higher 
category of self-activity over the category of 
essence. Hegel's third great category is Idea. By 
this he means completed self-activity, or the self- 
activity that has transcended the form of (a) plant 
life or assimilation, (b) animal life, or feeling and 
locomotion, (c) thinking and willing as separate 
phases of rationality. All these (a, b, c,) are 
ascending phases of imperfect Idea or self-activity, 
but perfect or completed self-activity has reached 
absoluteness in which the will and intellect have 
become one (an insight found also in scholastic 
theology) so that the idea thinks itself and its 
thinking is willing in such a manner that its 
thinking and willing are creative, and Jience the 
absolute Idea is the personal God of theism. He 
knows Himself, and as conscious of Himself makes 
Himself an object or a not-me, which is at the 
same time a me — another me, the Logos or "Eter- 
nally begotten Son." His recognition of this 
other me as Himself, and their mutual recognition 
bring unity again and we have the doctrine of the 
Trinity complete. 



THE THREE CATEGORIES. 145 

Under this third and final category everything 
is regarded as a revelation of a creator. Under 
the second category everything is regarded as a 
manifestation or appearance of a blind force or 
energy and as having no substantiality. Each 
thing is a phenomenon and not a noumenon. 
With the insight into self-activity as the origin of 
al^ each thing is seen in the light of a purpose or 
final cause. Each thing arises in the course of 
divine self-knowledge and is a step in the revela- 
tion of God. God's independence and self-exist- 
ence demand independence and self-existence in 
the creatures that reveal Him, and hence the 
world of things now seems to us when looked at 
through this highest category as a progressive 
revelation of self -activity through increasing inde- 
pendence and self -activity. Plant, animal, and 
man are three steps in this revelation of divine 
freedom and independent self-activity, in finite 
freedom and self-activity. 

All categories of essence are taken up as phases 
of the higher category of self-activity and such 
categories are no longer used in their old meaning. 

In this chapter the three great categories have 
been described rather than defined, and some at- 
tempt has been made to show how the category of 
Essence arises from the category of Being as a 
necessity of thought. The necessity of the cate- 
gory of Idea as the explanation of the category of 
essence must be reserved for the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HEGEl/s ABSOLUTE AS THE TRUE BEGINNING OF 
HIS SYSTEM. 

IT is evident from the foregoing discussion of 
the nature of pure thought and its three chief 
categories, Being, Essence, and Idea, that the true 
beginning of Hegel's system is with idea or self- 
activity. But we are told that there are three be- 
gin nings to a system of philosophy. There is a 
subjective beginning which begins with the lowest 
stage of consciousness, the mere certitude of sense- 
perception, and by the use of philosophical method 
climbs to the ultimate presuppositions of knowl- 
edge and discovers the first principle. This is 
the phenomenology of spirit. Then there^ is an 
ontological beginning with the emptiest category 
of experience, namely, pure being, which investi- 
gates also, like the former, the totality of its con- 
ditions — in other words it ascends from being to 
absolute self-activity. In the latter it finds the 
condition necessary to the former. In these two 
beginnings we perceive that the most inadequate is 
the first, while the most adequate is the last. 
Sense-perception is the crudest and least conscious 
form of knowing — that form which knows least 
about itself and understands the least about its 
presuppositions, Empty being also is least ade- 

146 



ABSOLUTE AS THE TRUE BEGINJSTNTG. 14? 

quate of all categories to explain the origin of 
finite things with their infinite variety, the least 
adequate to explain creative and destructive activi- 
ties in the world. In both cases we leave or set 
out from that which is unable to explain itself and 
arrive at that which explains not only itself but 
also the inadequate knowing or being with which 
we began. Hence the third beginning is self- 
activity, which is the ground of its own existence 
and also of all dependent existence. The knowing 
also which recognizes self -activity as the ultimate 
first principle is also the highest form of knowing 
because it comprehends its method and sees how 
the lower forms of knowing perish through lack of 
the power of reflection on the method of their 
procedures. There is a discrepancy between their 
results and their method. 

When pure thought sees that pure self -activity 
is mind, it sees that the absolute being and the 
absolute knowing are one. This is Hegel's famous 
" assumption/' so-called, that being and thought 
are one and hence the evolution of pure thought is 
the evolution of the necessary conditions of being. 
But as ordinarily understood nothing could be 
farther from Hegel's meaning as the following 
may show. 

Hegel's real beginning is with this principle of 
self-activity as mind. Mind is the fundamental 
ground of all objective being and of all subjective 
consciousness. Schelling's two poles of nature and 
finite mind rested on the point of indifference or 
identity, which is absolute mind. Absolute mind 



148 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

according to this is the absolute being. Its 
thought is creative and gives rise to the world of 
nature and the world of spirits. 

Before Hegel could form his philosophical sys- 
tem he must have arrived at this insight. Until 
one sees the necessity of a deeper principle he does 
not seek a road that leads from the knowledge 
already possessed to a knowledge beyond it. Still 
less could Hegel have started in his phenomeno- 
logy with the right method unless he had already 
discovered his highest principle. Xor could he 
have written his logic unless he had already gained 
possession of the final thought which explains all 
the others. He could not find the dialectic of 
being except by placing the inadequate thought, 
which uses the categories of being as if they were 
true and valid, under the light of the final 
thought. He tells us himself that his phenome- 
nology is an application of the true method to con- 
sciousness and its contents. 

After Hegel had found his first principle by his 
own gropings, and especially by the study of Greek 
philosophy in connection with the Kantian philos- 
ophy, his first work was to retrace his steps and 
bring them to consciousness in his great work on 
The Phenomenology of Spirit. He could now by 
the aid of his first principle show up the dialectic 
movement in the inadequate and thus write out a 
demonstration or proof of his highest principle.- 
A principle is proved when it is shown to be 
necessary in order to explain other things. 

The peculiarity of Hegel's first principle, which 



ABSOLUTE AS THE TRUE BEGI^KIKG. 149 

must be noted above all else, is the fact that his 
principle is also a method. For his principle is an 
absolute energy ; its very essence is activity ; hence 
it is an eternal procedure. Hegel's insight recog- 
nizes the truth of Aristotle's doctrine that the 
highest and most perfect being is a purely active 
reason. The form of self-activity is method. 
Hegel's Idee is principle and method in one. This 
is better understood through the scholastic doc- 
trine that in God intellect and will are one. If so, 
God's self-knowing is a self -willing and the divine 
thinking is creative. The self-knowing of the 
divine reason generates the eternally begotten 
Word. 

We see that Hegel's doctrine that thought and 
being are one is intended in the same sense as the 
theological doctrine that the world is created by 
the Eternal Word. 

In the previous chapter we saw how the second 
of the three great categories arose from the first — 
namely, how essence supplanted being. One ques- 
tion now remains : How does essence give place 
to idea or self -activity as its higher and completer 
condition ? 

The sub-categories of essence mentioned in the 
previous chapter are ground, phenomenon and 
actuality. These names do not express the salient 
thought of essence. The first of these, ground, 
explains difference and identity by the ideas of 
form and content. The second (phenomenon) 
explains form and content by the idea of force and 
manifestation. Force is an internal whose essence 



150 HEGElAs LOGIC. 

it is to become external. But force and manifesta- 
tion are explained by the deeper and more adequate 
idea of cause and effect. Causality is the chief 
idea of the third part of essence, which treats of 
actuality (WirJcUchJceit). Consequently causality 
is the most important idea within the compass of 
the category of essence, and indeed within the 
whole logic thus far. 

With the idea of cause we reach a fundamental 
reality, a true actuality. Mere existence is effect 
only, in so far as it is composed of things. Things 
are manifestations of forces and are hence phenom- 
enal and not absolute, not independent. So, too, 
forces are not final realities though they are phases 
of energy. Each force depends on other forces for 
its occasion or incitement to act as well as for the 
guidance of its action. Hence force is dependent 
on a higher unity and is not a true "actuality." 
But with the idea of cause we conceive the actual- 
ity, or, as we prefer to name it, "ultimate reality," 
because we think a cause as that which can of itself 
originate movement and determination. The cause 
is that which is in its very nature self-separating. 
Hence, too, the idea of cause involves the idea of 
action on itself or self-activity as the necessary 
condition of its action on another. It separates 
influence or determining power from itself and 
transfers it to another, the effect. 

With this thought we leave the realm of the 
category of essence altogether, and arrive at that 
of self-activity, or as Hegel calls it Begriff and 
Idee. The transition is made through the 



ABSOLUTE AS THE TKUE BEGI^NI^G. 151 

thought of causa sui as the idea implicit in 
cause. Causality as a category of essence implies 
a duality of cause and effect as independent en- 
tities. But it is first seen that effect is correl- 
ative to cause, and dependent on cause for its 
existence. Next it is seen that cause is correl- 
ative to effect, but not dependent on an external 
effect. The cause necessarily is active, but as it 
originates its action by self-determination it con- 
tains within itself the whole sphere of correlation 

a. 

and is cause and effect in one. This is what 
Spinoza meant by the phrase causa sui. The 
phrase expresses happily the arrival at the idea of 
self-activity through a contemplation of the cate- 
gory of causality. It is an insight that transcends 
the sphere of the categories of essence. This 
causa sui is in this respect equivalent to "Begriff," 
as Hegel uses it, or to " self -activity " as used in 
this volume. 

In another place we shall consider more in detail 
the devices resorted to by reflection to conceal or 
postpone the thought of self-activity implicit in 
causality — such devices for example as an infinite 
regress of causes such as Kant himself is concerned 
with "in his third antinomy (already mentioned in 
chapter second). But we will now take up in a new 
chapter the consideration of the inner nature of 
this self-activity as furnishing us the sub-cate- 
gories of universality, particularity and individ- 
uality. 



CHAPTER XIII. 






ANALYSIS OF HEGEI/S " BEGRIFF " OR NOTION 
AS SELF-ACTIVITY : — UNIYERSAL, PARTICU- 
LAR, AND SINGULAR. 

IF we consider the idea of self-activity we see 
that it is a unity of two distinctions in an 
idea of energy. There is the self, the subject 
which is the as yet indefinite possibility. The 
self is the possibility of all forms and yet is form- 
less, so far as realization is concerned. More- 
over, the self is an energy which can determine 
itself, it is self-active. That which is formless 
but the capacity for all forms — that which is an 
energy to determine itself in all forms — is the uni- 
versal. 

For the universal is the same as the individuals 
that are subsumed under it, except in non-essen- 
tial details, or further determinations which dis- 
tinguish one individual from another. These dis- 
tinguishing and excluding determinations which 
make the universal an individual are entirely sup- 
pressed. The self-active as self, therefore, is uni- 
versality, the general or generic. 

Again the self-active determines itself and thus 
it is determined as well as determining. It is pas- 
sive as well as active. As passive it is opposed to 
the active and distinguished from it ; thus there 

152 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEL S BEGRIFF. 153 

is division and mutual limitation and finitude; 
this is the realm of particularity opposed to uni- 
versality. Particularity involves division and ex- 
clusion, the part contrasted with the whole. It is 
some as opposed to all. Self-activity therefore in- 
volves particularity as well as universality. More- 
over it involves individuality, as we shall now see. 
The determinations of particularity proceed 
from the self-determining energy of the univer- 
sal. This energy reveals its nature, so to speak, 
in the determinations of the particular, just as 
cause reveals itself in its effects. The energy re- 
veals itself in its activity of determining and hence 
each determination that is already realized, in so 
far as passive, contradicts the universal ; in so far 
as the particular is self-active it continues to re- 
veal the universal and is in harmony with it. In 
so far as the particular is passive, the self-activity 
of the universal annuls it and replaces it by an- 
other determination. In this the universal re- 
veals its freedom because it restores its general pos- 
sibility of determinations by unfixing and an- 
nulling particular determinations already realized. 
Such annulling activity is a return to universality, 
for it negates the differences and distinctions, 
abolishing the limitations of realized determina- 
tions and restoring possibility and energy in place 
of dead results and passive effects. This is individ- 
uality, for it is the manifestation of one indivisible 
energy as producing effects and taking them back 
into itself. No determination gets realized in the 
particularity that the producing energy cannot 



154 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

modify, or replace altogether, thereby revealing 
its freedom. A free being is a being that is uni- 
versal and can descend into particularity and at 
the same time return out of it. In other words, 
the free being is formless in so far as subject or 
self, which is the possibility of all determinations 
but not their reality, though it is the power that 
can produce them. Moreover, the free being mani- 
fests its freedom in two ways: first, by realizing its 
potential determinations ; secondly, by annulling 
them and restoring its general potentiality or 
formlessness. A unit which arises from annull- 
ing multiplicity is called by Hegel a negatiye uni- 
ty (negative Elnlieit). Such a unit is the individ- 
ual or singular. 

Hegel's preternatural acuteness of discrimina- 
tion and identification is fully exemplified in the 
chapter on " Begritf " which opens the third part 
of his logic. He is able to see this whole process 
of the individual as return to the universal out 
of the particular, eyen in the ordinary experi- 
ence which perceives particulars and recognizes 
classes. To understand this let us note first 
that the limitations which make the particular 
what it is are manifestations of the energy of 
the universal in its action of self-determination. 
At all events, those limitations by which one 
particular excludes others are manifestations of 
causal energy. The independence of the object 
is sustained by this power of causal energy and 
at the same time each is limited, or to that ex- 
tent annulled, by the power of other particulars. 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEl/S BEGRIFF. 155 

Thus the energy in the particulars is a sustaining 
and an annulling power and each particular is 
sustained and annulled. In this is seen the uni- 
versal, which is general possibility and the energy 
to realize it and also to emancipate itself from 
such realization or particularization. 

This may be seen more clearly perhaps by con- 
sidering all things as realities, but with spheres of 
possibility. Each thing is really what it is, but 
also it is the possibility of many other things. A 
piece of wood of a given shape is what it is, but 
it is also the possibility of an arrow or a bow 
or a chair or whatever may be made of it — or 
also the possibility of ashes and gases to which 
fire may reduce it ; or of vegetable mould, to 
which the air and moisture will reduce it. Water 
is liquid or solid (as ice) or vapor — when one of 
these states is real the others are potential. 
Now, if we regard the potential states as pro- 
ducing an effect of change on the thing we 
shall have a process with two factors — one, the 
real, which is in reciprocal relation with the en- 
vironment, and the other factor the potentiality 
which continually acts to remove or modify the 
real and to become real in the place of what is al- 
ready realized. The product of these two factors 
is the true actuality. What we ordinarily call 
the real is only the one phase of it. It requires 
the whole process of positing the real and remov- 
ing it to reveal the true actuality. 

We have seen that if we analyze the idea of self- 
activity we find that it is a unity of two distinc- 



156 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

tions in one. The idea of energy unites within it 
two contrary or opposed ideas. First, there is the 
self, which acts, and second, the object or result 
of the action, for the self acts upon the self. 
Hence there is the distinction of active and passive 
in this idea of original energy. Moreover, the 
self as active and not yet passive is the possibility 
of the determinations or modifications which will 
arise through the activity, but have not yet arisen. 
The object or result of the activity on the other 
hand is the reality or actuality of the determina- 
tions that were possible in the self or subject of 
the activity. This analysis is probably the course 
of thought which Aristotle was led to in reflecting 
upon Plato's self-moved ideas. He noted the anti- 
thesis of subject and object in a self-activity or 
energy and thus derived the ideas of potentiality, 
form, efficient cause, and final cause. For they 
are all involved in that of self -activity or energy. 
Aristotle had to push beyond the idea of mere caus- 
ality as such to the idea of original cause, or in- 
dependent origin of activity, before he could find 
a first principle. Plato had taught him this, that 
all ultimates, whether one, or many in one, are such 
self-activities, called by him "ideas." "Idea" 
meant form with the implication of self -formation. 
Plato apotheosized final cause or purpose in the 
idea of the Good. 

Analyzing self -activity, we discover, like Aris- 
totle, first the self before or apart from the activ- 
ity. Then it is the mere potentiality or possibility 
of forms or modifications which it may take on 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEI/S BEGRIFF. 157 

through action. It is the possibility of all forms 
and yet it is formless, so far as contrasted with the 
realization. This phase Aristotle calls matter 
(v\rj) because it is that which is to be determined 
by the action and is to receive a form. He called it 
also potentiality (Svvajuis) because it is the power 
of or rather the capacity for such determining — 
the vague possibility of all determination. 

Hegel calls this phase universality (Allgemein- 
heit) including Aristotle's matter and potentiality 
in one thought. For the universal is the as yet 
formless, or unformed, unparticularized matter, 
while it is also a power of determination. For ex- 
ample, we see in a living being a universal in that it 
is reproductive — an acorn reproduces itself through 
the process of growth into an oak and its fruitage; 
thus a single acorn becomes many or a species. 
An animal not only reproduces its species but as 
sensitive and volitional it determines itself within, 
by making itself object. In sense-perception the 
self reproduces within itself its environment, that 
is to say, it images it or represents it. It does 
not receive its environment, but it makes a model 
or picture of it, so to speak, within itself — it mim- 
ics or imitates it and thus becomes its own environ- 
ment ; or in other words, its environment is its 
thought or idea. In self-consciousness the ego or 
self is subject and likewise object, thus repeating 
itself. Here is the perfection of the universal — the 
ego finding itself under all that it thinks. It finds 
an object as an effect and thinks the presupposi- 
tion of this object, that is to say, it thinks the 



158 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

cause presupposed by this effect. To think the 
cause is to think the originating energy, the self 
of the object. Thus all thinking is a process in 
which the self finds the self again — the living 
energy contemplates the living energy under the 
object. 

This illustration of the universal or generic in 
(a) its forms of reproduction of species (life) ; (b) 
reproduction of environment by mimetic action 
(feeling and sense perception) ; (c) reproduction 
of self as the essence of the object (self-conscious 
thought) may serve to orient us in this very ab- 
stract discussion. It may show us the path of 
Aristotle on his way from the idea of movement 
in space to the idea of energy as the unmoved 
source of motion. And it certainly is Hegel's path 
from essence ( WesenJ to Idea (Idee), 

Philosophy comes at one bound from the de- 
pendent to the independent : from the determined 
through others to the self-determined. It is easy 
to see that independent being must be self-deter- 
mined. But it takes much skill in pure thought 
to recognize what is contained under the form of 
self-determination. ''The determined through 
others" is easily identified as including all depend- 
ent being — all being with an environment of 
other being — everything that is conditioned by 
what is not itself. Hence everything in space is 
dependent. But what can be found in our expe- 
rience that comes under the definition of self-de- 
termined or independent ? Plato at a single leap 
identifies life and thought with it. In the Lazes 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEI/S BEGKIFF. 159 

(X. 895) he calls self-motion (i. e. self-activity) 
"the origin and beginning of motion, the eldest 
and mightiest principle of change," and asks : " If 
I were to see this power existing in any earthy, 
watery, or fiery substance, simple or compound — 
what should I say that the power is ?" The 
reply follows : " I should call tire self-moving 

power life and whenever we see the 

soul in anything we must admit that, this too 
is life." And again (X. 896) "The soul as being 
the source of motion has been most satisfactorily 
shown to be the oldest of things" (Jowett, IV, 
408). 

Aristotle after prudently discriminating the first 
mover from all manner of movement and defining 
it as a causal energy (Metaph. XII. 6) finds it to 
have the highest and most perfect form of activi- 
ty such as we find in pure thought (Qeaopelv). This 
is thought which thinks pure ideas — ideas purely 
a priori or without elements derived from experi- 
ence. 

When the mind^thinks pure ideas, it thinks its 
own determinations (or forms). This activity is 
with us intermittent ; but in the first mover, Him- 
self not moved, but moving all things that are 
moved, this pure thought activity " is uninter- 
rupted and eternal, for this is God," says Aristotle 
(Met. XII. 7). Such activity of pure thought is 
called also Eeason (vovt) by Aristotle in his Psy- 
chology {nepl ipvxv III. 4, 5). It is according to 
him the active principle in life, sensation, memory, 
and thought. In so far as these activities lack 



160 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

perfect independence — being partially conversant 
with outside material (such as food for the body, 
things and events as objects to perceive,, remember 
and reflect upon) the reason is called passive rea- 
son (vovS rtaQrjriKoS). 

This passive reason is transient or perishable 
(cpQapros) or rather these faculties are perishable. 
This is, however, not because the soul perishes, but 
rather for the reason that the soul outgrows them. 
For it ascends towards the higher activity, that of 
pure thought. The self -activity involved in life by 
living prepares itself for sensation and locomotion; 
by sensation and locomotion it prepares itself for 
thinking and willing ; by thinking and willing it 
reaches pure thought wherein knowledge and will 
are one. In thinking pure thought, the will cre- 
ates the object, and hence knowing and willing be- 
come identical. 

Thus in ascending above sense-perception and 
memory the soul dispenses with their activity, 
having more adequate forms of knowing ; through 
disuse those faculties dwindle and finally perish. 
Insight is better than memory. To see a causal 
principle is better than to be obliged to retain all 
the details that follow as its results. 

The study of the nature of pure thought in 
which thinking-subject and thought-object are the 
same, has led philosophers to the idea of God. 

The student of Hegel finds this to be the clue to 
the thought in the concluding portion (Part III.) 
of his Logic. First, he treats of Begriff or self- 
activity — causa sui — which is the thought reached 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEl/s BEGRIFF. 161 

at the end of the second portion (Part II. Wesen) % 
This Begrijf as self-activity is possibility of all de- 
termination, the universal ; as active determiner 
opposed to passive possibility of being determined, 
it is cause (causa efficiens) opposed to matter 
(causa mater talis ) and this duality is particularity. 
Thirdly, it is individual or singular when consid- 
ered as annulling this opposition or antithesis of 
active subject and passive object by transfer of 
energy from subject to object so that the object 
becomes self-active. 

This becoming of individuality is perhaps Hegel's 
greatest and most original insight. The idea of 
substantial separatee, indeed belonged to Plato and 
Aristotle, and to the Schoolmen, but its relation to 
the universal and particular was not seen so per- 
fectly as Hegel saw it. The basis of the universal 
is a negative act, but a negative act returning upon 
itself. This Hegel discusses at length under the 
head of " Reflexion" at the beginning of the sec- 
ond volume of the Logic, treating of " Wesen " 
or Essence. A self-related negative has two phases, 
one of identity and one of difference, all in the 
same act. For in the first place the relation of 
the negative to itself, since it is that of the, same 
to the same, is one of identity. But since it is 
an activity of negating, it negates itself in relat- 
ing to itself, and thus produces difference and be- 
comes another to itself. 

This no doubt seems at first, fine-spun and per- 
haps only a verbal quibble, but when the thinker 
gets familiar with the subject and learns to hold 



162 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

the idea of pure activity firmly in his thought, by 
itself — when he learns to analyze its phases into 
form and content and to see their interaction 
(how the form determines the content, and vice 
versa) he will see the solution which Hegel has 
prepared for this question of the rise of individu- 
ality out of self-determination. 

The doctrine of Eefiexion as treated by Hegel 
explains all the dual or complementary catego- 
ries, such as identity and difference, essence and 
phenomenon, force and manifestation, cause and 
effect. It shows how mind puts one phase (the 
content or identity-phase) for one of the comple- 
mentary terms, and the other phase (the phase of 
form or difference) for the other of the comple- 
mentary terms. The old distinction between the 
Understanding and the Reason is found here. 
The understanding does not see that the two 
phases are halves of the same act, while the reason 
on the other hand, recognizes their identity. 
Hence the understanding (or the "mere human 
intellect") cannot see spiritual or divine truths, 
while the reason is the "mind illuminated by 
wisdom." 

To illustrate this further : cause is regarded as 
active and producing difference (or form) on an- 
other. Effect is the identity or content, the pas- 
sive. But looked at more closely we see that the 
idea of cause involves self-activity, and that it con- 
tains an effect already. For before it can send an 
influence to another it must separate it from itself. 
Hence it is causa sui. It is in itself difference or 



analysis of hegel's begriff. 163 

separation from itself, self-negative. In producing 
identity, or passive being, or effect devoid of ac- 
tivity, the cause loses its energy and" becomes its 
opposite. Hence difference is produced instead of 
identity. Hence its very act of identity is an act 
of difference. Content becomes form. But in 
producing difference it duplicates itself as a nega- 
ative act and thus arrives at its identity again. 
The form becomes content. 

The discovery of this continuous alternation of 
identity and difference is called in The Phenome- 
nology of Spirit (as we have already seen in chap- 
ter IV.) the "attraction of the heteronymous" 
and the "repulsion of the homonymous," and it 
is the transition from "force" as the supreme 
category of the understanding, to " self -conscious- 
ness " as the category of the reason. 

It is the idea of vitality and consciousness, as 
the perpetual production of itself and the perpet- 
ual becoming other to itself. This is the basis of 
mind which is always a self-object, and always 
identifying itself in its object. 

Individuality as the third category resulting 
from the universal and the particular is simply the 
identity developing from the difference — the return 
of particularity to the simplicity of the universal. 
The individual is an identity pervading its own 
differences ; all its differences are its own act and 
all are its distinctions from itself ; but it can an- 
nul any one of these differences. But its very act 
of negating a difference is at the same time the 
production of a difference. The difference an- 



164 HEGEL S LOGIC. 

nulled is the content ; the difference that arises 
through the act of annulment is a difference of 
form. 

This insight Hegel must have reached before he 
wrote any of his Logic, or indeed before he wrote 
any of his Phenomenology. Because it is the es- 
sence of his dialectic method. He traces a differ- 
ence that disappears in the content to a difference 
that appears coetaneously in the form. 

The dialectic of Being, Xaught, and Becoming, 
in the first chapter of the Logic, is to be seen only 
by applying this insight to the ultimate abstraction 
of pure thought. 

Being as content is pure identity, but as form 
it is pure self-related negativity. The thinking 
which thinks it negates all content, and then con- 
templates this act of pure negation as its content 
or object. The second act of contemplation of 
the negation as object called " being " is self-con- 
tradictory, because it determines what has been 
defined as indeterminate or " pure being. " Any 
contrast is determination, and to make an object 
of a thought is to determine it. Thus the content 
(pure being) is contradicted by the form (object 
over against subject). Hence being as object re- 
quires to be abstracted from or negated, in order 
to correct the determination of the object. Uni- 
versal negation, or naught is the correction which 
we try to substitute for the object "pure being." 
But the substitution avails nothing ; for as soon as 
made the object of thought it is determined and 
is not what is wanted. 



ANALYSIS OF HEGEI/S BEGRIFF, 165 

As the doctrine of " reflexion " has taught He- 
gel to hold both form and content before him and 
not lose the one while holding the other, he sees 
clearly that Being and Xaught are impossible as 
objects of thought or as existences (for actual exist- 
ence demands contradistinction just as the object 
in thought demands it). What is really thought is 
only the instant annulment of the one, through 
the other, and this thought is that of becoming, 
which we will consider further in another chapter. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

DETERMIJSTATENESS (QUALITY). BEING. 

LOOKING for the simplest thought, that which 
must occur in every thought, and which 
will be present in the emptiest as well as in the 
most complex thought, Hegel finds this category 
to be that of being (Seyn). If thought begins it 
will begin with being. 

On the other hand, let thought begin with any 
other category— say the ego as Fichte suggested, 
or matter as the materialistic philosophy suggests, 
and it is clear that under the name ego or matter, 
thought thinks at first only being and then pro- 
ceeds to determine or limit its meaning, narrowing 
it down until it gets the idea of ego or pure sub- 
ject of thought, or the idea of matter as indiffer- 
ent substratum of all things. 

Hegel cannot be mistaken, therefore, when he 
selects the category of being as the first and 
simplest thought-category. 

He suggests in his introduction that we may 
find this by analyzing the concept "beginning." 
Beginning must have two terms — namely, nought 
and being, for it is a going from the non-being to 
•the being of what is begun. 

Taking, then, the category of being Hegel inves- 
tigates it to see whether we can think it purely by 

166 



DETEmilXATEXESS. 167 

itself, and if so how we think it. Define it. 
Thinking is a process of seizing by definition. 

" Being, pure-being without any farther limita- 
tion or determinateness : In its indefinite immecli- 
ateness, it is identical only with itself, and more- 
over is not to be thought as non-identical with 
anything else. It has no difference or variety 
either within itself or as regards anything exter- 
nal. For if it had any determination or charac- 
teristic by which it could be defined in itself or 
distinguished from something else we should not 
have the thought of pure-being, but of definite or 
determinate being. Pure being is utter indetermi- 
nateness and emptiness. There is nothing in it 
to be seen, if seeing may be spoken of in this con- 
nection. Or in other words we might say it is the 
empty act of seeing — a pure seeing as it were, or a 
pure thinking which has no object except this 
empty being. The indefinite immediate is in fact 
nothing or naught, and neither more nor less/" 

This is Hegel's analysis of the first category. 
Being is so simple that there is nothing in it and it 
cannot be discriminated from the idea of naught. 

Let us note carefully here the hint that the 
thought is the empty seeing (Anscliauen) or the 
empty thinking (Denken). On this view of the 
case it is the first act of turning the thinking on 
itself — thinking thinks itself in its first form as 
the category of being. For in thinking being it 
has made abstraction from the entire universe of 
experience and concentrated itself on its own 
negative act — the act of exclusion or abstraction. 



168 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

Here is a fruitful hint for psychology. It would 
seem that the mind cognizes by putting itself 
under its experience — recognizing itself as it were 
in the object — and that it begins its knowing of 
the object by recognizing its own blank form, its 
own negative activity, under the category of being 
which it applies as a predicate to its object when 
it begins. It says "This is" and in so saying 
it has recognized a determination of some sort 
("This") in its own negative indeterminateness, 
being. 

Now the question arises whether Hegel or any 
other thinker can proceed further beyond this 
category. He has identified it with the category 
of naught — two names for one thought, we may 
say. Hence we cannot expect to treat the cate- 
gory of naught as a different category : the differ- 
ence is only a matter of names. 

CAUGHT. 

But Hegel (p. 73)* proceeds at once to take up 
Naught (Niclits) as a separate category : "Noth- 
ing (naught) the pure nothing ; it is simple iden- 
tity with itself, perfect emptiness, devoid of all 
determination or characteristics ; indistinguish- 
ableness in itself. To see or think nothing is con- 
sidered a different matter from seeing or think- 
ing something — in this case we attribute a sort of 
entity or existence to the idea of nothing as an 

*The reference to pages will be until further notice to Volume I. 
of Ynssenschaft tier Log Ik, Erster Theil, Die objective Log'ik. Ersle 
Abtheilung. Die Lehre vom Seyn. Zweite Auflage. This is the third 
volume of his collected works. 



DETERMI^ATE^ESS. 169 

object of our seeing or thinking. It would be 
preferable to call it the empty seeing or thinking. 
This is the same empty seeing or thinking as pure 
being. Naught (nothing) is consequently the 
same determination (Bestimmung) " — " Bestim- 
mung" the word that Hegel uses, I translate by 
the word determination. It is an extremely con- 
venient technical term in logic and psychology. 
It describes or includes any phase of thought, any 
definition or limitation which thinking activity 
can discriminate — anything in short that defines 
one thought, idea, or object from another. In 
this case the sole characteristic is characteristic- 
lessness or want of characteristics — and this 
enables us to discriminate it from all else because 
all else has and must have characteristics. 
"Naught is the same determination," he continues, 
"or rather determinationlessness (want of cleter- 
minateness), and hence the same thing altogether 
(iiberliaiqit) that being is." 

Very well, again we acknowledge that we have 
only two words for the same thing. Now, however, 
we come to the first paradox of Hegel. To say 
that pure being and pure nothing are the same is 
scarcely a paradox — we see that two utterly empty 
thoughts must be the same and the only difference 
must be a verbal one. Now, however, Hegel 
comes to consider Becoming (Werden) and talks 
in this way about it : " Pure being and pure 
naught are therefore the same. The truth is 
neither being nor naught, but the truth is the 
being passed over into naught and naught passed 



170 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

over into being — not in the process of transition, 
but actually gone over/' The " truth " of a thing 
is a technical expression of Hegel meaning the out 
come or result — the tested and approved residuum 
of a process. This outcome he goes on to say is 
something paradoxical. "But the truth is also 
not their indistinguishableness : they are not the 
same, but absolutely distinct; they are however 
inseparable and each one has a way of vanishing 
in the other [as soon as it is seized in thought]. 
Their truth is therefore the movement or activity 
(Bewegung) of immediate vanishing, the one in 
the other. It is the becoming, which is an 
activity (Beivegung) containing both being and 
naught as distinct, but at the same time as losing 
their distinctness and becoming indistinguish- 
able." 

Here is our paradox. If we were right in hold- 
ing that in being and naught we had two words 
for the same idea, then there could be no opportu- 
nity left for becoming. For to go from one word 
to another that expresses the same thought is not 
a becoming in the sense that Hegel here describes. 

It must be inferred that Hegel saw something in 
the process of investigating being and naught that 
he did not mention. "What is it? we read over 
asrain and a2:ain carefullv everv word of the 
description of being and naught, but get no light. 

We then take up the extended remarks (Anmer- 
Tcungen) or explanations that he appends. Eemark 
I. occupies nine pages — 3600 words — and relates 
to the contrast of being and naught as we find it 



DETERMIXATEKESS. 171 

in our ordinary thinking which uses pictures and 
images. This does not help us ; we see at a glance 
that such thinking does not contrast pure being 
and pure naught, but only pure naught with 
determinate being or existence. Common sense 
has the idea, but it gives it only one of the names 
and calls it " naught." But this does not help us 
understand the real paradox, which is not the iden- 
tity of being and naught, but their difference 
affirmed as the ground of the substitution of the 
category of becoming for being and naught. The 
second remark (1600 words) treats of the defect in 
the expression "unity and identity of being and 
naught." It would seem that this expression ex- 
cludes diversity which needs mention as much as 
identity. But Hegel assumes this diversity and 
gives us no further clue to his discovery of it. He 
evidently supposes that we shall have no difficulty 
in seeing the diversity and that our only obstacle 
will be found in admitting the identity. Remark 
III. (5000 words) follows on the isolation of these 
abstractions — the efforts that had been made in vain 
to proceed from the thought of the pure simple 
being to creation and multiplicity. He adduces 
the discussions by Parmenides, Jacobi, and the 
Hindoo thinkers of Brahma. He keeps our inter- 
est excited and we expect to find in this remark 
the very explanation that we seek. But while he 
criticises with great acuteness those who hold fast to 
the abstraction, he does not let us into his own in- 
sight. Remark IV. (800 words) is devoted to the 
incomprehensibility of the category of beginning. 



172 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

It affords us no help to see the difference of being 
and naught. 

We must undertake a new analysis with a view 
to discover if possible this hidden step. 

HEGEI/S TEUE INSIGHT INTO BEING AND 
NAUGHT. 

Looking freely once more at the discussion of 
being and naught, we note again the fact that we 
have the simple under two names, being and 
naught. We inquire into the possibility of think- 
ing the simple by itself and here we come upon 
the suppressed link in Hegel's exposition. 

To think is to determine, we are told. The de- 
termination of being is indeterminateness and 
thought is compelled by its nature to think what- 
ever it thinks as a character discriminated from 
another character different from it. Hence comes 
the paradox : To think pure being we apply the 
predicate of indeterminateness and thus discrimi- 
nate it from the entire content of human experi- 
ence — distinguish it in short from the world and 
all that it contains. But we admit at the start 
that pure being cannot have any contrast either 
within or without. This very requirement is a 
definition which contrasts pure being with all 
else. . 

Strive as we may, we see that our act of thinking 
determines and thus negates or annuls the thought 
of the pure simple. Even to make it an object of 
thought contrasts it with the subject of thought, 
the ego, and thus annuls it. 



DETEKMIKATEKESS. 173 

Now that we are aware of this fact we see that 
we did not think the simple under either of the 
names pure being or pure naught. What did we 
think then ? We thought the annulment of the 
simple by the act of determination, and we 
thought this not as a completed result, but as a 
process. We thought the self-antithesis of the 
simple — the simple which could only be a termi- 
nus or starting-point, a terminus ab quo. In the 
act of thinking it we departed from it at once, or 
changed it into a related or contrasted. 

It is in the nature of the ego to be subject and 
object, and the Hindoos say that this characteris- 
tic (" Alianlcara," as they call it — "subject- 
objectivity" as Fichte called it) affected all its 
thoughts and introduced distinctions filling a 
world. 

We see, therefore, that we really thought a be- 
coming instead of an isolated term which we 
named being or naught. Now that we have as an 
object a self -dualizing something, we have room 
for the difference between being and naught. We 
see that under either name we think a terminus, 
or one of the termini involved in the category of 
becoming. Start from the simple and it proves 
self -negative ; we determine it and it has changed 
to a complex. Think being and it becomes deter- 
mined. This act of determining is an act of 
negating, an act of limiting or defining — an act of 
annulling. Being to be pure being must exclude 
determinate being and thus it must be thought as 
negating or defining itself. Naught to be naught 



174 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

must be thought as excluding all existence. But 
(nota bene) either being or naught to be a pure 
simple must exclude also this very act of excluding, 
it must get rid of its contrast or definition, for 
such characteristics prevent it from being pure 
and simple. 

The simple, then, has to be thought as a self- 
contradiction, a self-exclusion, a negative that 
negates itself. Here we have found the insight 
that explains our paradox. 

THE BECOMING. 

If being is becoming and naught is becoming — 
if the simple under whatever name has to be 
thought as a self-excluding or contradictory, then 
it is obvious that thought begins with the category 
of becoming and not with the category of being or 
that of naught. Being and naught are only ter- 
mini of that category which cannot be thought 
isolatedly or abstractly, but only as terms from 
which, or terms to which, a transition is made. 
They are as Hegel says "moments" (Momente) of 
becoming. 

Here we have the famous dialectic which is 
described as the self-movement of the notion 
(Beg riff). Seize an imperfect idea and it will 
show up its imperfection by leading to and imply- 
ing another idea as a more perfect or complete 
form of it. Its imperfection will show itself as 
dependence on another. This is the philosophic 
method seen so clearly by Plato and stated in his 
Republic (Book VII. chapter 3). Pure science 



detekmln"ate:n"ess. 175 

(kiti6rr}^7]) according to him has a dialectic 
method and starts with hypotheses — or, as we 
should describe them, dependent ideas, ideas that 
imply other ideas to make them possible, just as 
the idea of inner and outer or positive and negative 
imply each the other. But this dialectic method an- 
nuls these hypotheses on its way towards the high- 
est principle (rd$ vrtoQedeiS dvaipovda etc avrrjv 
TTfv dpxv y )- He nses the word dvaipeao, which 
like the Latin tollere has the double meaning of to 
annul and to preserve in a subordinate form — the 
meaning that Hegel finds in the German verb auf- 
heben. The et} T mological ground is a dangerous 
one, however, and it is better not to build on it. 
Plato seems to mean that the dialectic method starts 
with premises given by sense-perception and ordi- 
nary reflection, and seeking the presuppositions of 
these ascends to the first principle. An example 
of this is found in the inference of independent 
being as the necessary condition for the existence 
of dependent being, and this may be said to be the 
substantial insight lying at the basis of all true 
philosophy. Plato contrasts this method of as- 
cending from the imperfect to the perfect by dis- 
covering presuppositions, with the geometric 
method that uses axioms or fixed (anivrfrovs) hypo- 
theses, not being able to deduce them or explain 
them. 

Being and naught are annulled or subordinated 
(aufgehoben), found to be moments of a more con- 
crete and independent idea, the becoming. Thus 
in the dialectic an incomplete idea gets lost in a 



176 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

more complete one, of which it forms one of the 
characteristics (Bestimmungeii) . 

But is this only a psychological result or is it 
also ontological ? Is it a necessity of being or only 
a necessity of thought that the simple shall exist 
only as a phase of becoming? Undoubtedly what 
thought finds necessary to think in regard to exist- 
ence must be ontologically necessary. This has 
been forever set at rest by the history of the Post- 
Kantian philosophy — in Fichte (his latest Berlin 
system, fourid in his Way to a Blessed Life), and 
in Schelling and Hegel. Seize the Kantian dual- 
ism of thing-in-itself; opposed to forms of subject- 
ive thought, and see what is left for the objective 
after subtracting all forms of thought, and one 
will see clearly that thing-in-itself under all its 
names such as "objective existence," "pure be- 
ing," "the absolute," is a mere form of thought. 
You can have no half-way ground — you cannot 
affirm a thing-in-itself and deny objective validity 
to the categories of the mind like quality, quan- 
tity, causal relation, mode, and the like. For a 
denial of relation and mode to the objective makes 
it impossible altogether.* 

Hence if it is seen that the sinrple as pure being 
or pure naught cannot exist except in contrast to 
its opposite and cannot be thought except as an 
element of the category of becoming, this must be 
accepted as objective or ontological truth. If it is 

* I regard this as my first philosophical insight. It made an epoch 
in my life when I first thought my way to it on a December evening 
in 1858 in St. Louis. 



DETERMI^ATEKESS. 177 

found, too, that becoming is in its turn imperfect 
and dependent and only a moment of a still more 
concrete idea, this, too, is ontological. It is a dis- 
covery of what we imply when we use the category 
of real existence, or objective, or thing-in-itself. 
We are making clear to ourselves what that 
thought contains, and discovering what can pos- 
sibly have ontological truth. 

Let us now analyze Becoming with Hegel and 
see if it is also an incomplete thought. 

THE "}IOMEXTS" OF BECOMING. 

Becoming has two forms (p. 102) beginning and 
ceasing (Entstelien unci Yergehen). Each of these 
forms is the unity of being and naught — not the 
unity that arises from abstraction — not the unity 
that omits their difference, but the unity that con- 
tains their difference. Hence Hegel calls it a de- 
termined unity (iestimmte Einlieit) — a unity that 
contains difference as well as identity. If we say 
that becoming contains being and also naught, we 
do not mean that these two are mixed together and 
that each is present as an ingredient. For we 
have learned that pure being is not to be thought 
as a pure simple but only as a self-annulling, or 
self -negating, which is therefore a becoming and 
not a simple being or a simple naught. Whatever 
it is taken for, it is in fact only a terminus, and the 
act of thinking it or taking it at once determines 
it as something else than that which its definition 
gives it. 

Hence in our category of becoming, though we 



178 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

have two elements, they are not any longer in their 
purity and simplicity but each united with the other 
as a becoming. 

Each becoming is therefore a union of becom- 
ings. Here is our second paradox. It is the in- 
sight into the second step of the dialectic. Becom- 
ing is a union of being and naught, not as two sim- 
ples but as two forms of becoming. Let us ex- 
amine this closely. Make a sort of algebraic sub- 
stitution of the already found values of being and 
naught. For being substitute the category of ceas- 
ing, and for naught, substitute that of beginning. 
Our becoming then is a transition from ceasing to 
beginning and from begiuning to ceasing. Again, 
either of the two species of becoming is likewise a 
similar transition from itself to its opposite. For 
substitute once for all the newly found values of 
being and naught, namely ceasing and beginning, 
and we have for ceasing (from being to naught) a 
transition from ceasing to beginning. For begin- 
ning, which was a transition from naught to being, 
we have now a transition from beginning (the new- 
found equivalent of naught) to ceasing (the equi- 
valent of being). 

In as much as we have found the simple cate- 
gories of being and naught unthinkable except as 
categories of becoming — i. e., except as ceasing 
and beginning, we must substitute the latter equi- 
valents in all categories of becoming whenever they 
occur. Hence universally ceasing and beginning 
are each a transition to the opposite and each op- 
posite is a transition back to the former. Hence 



DETERMINATENESS. 179 

each is a transition through its opposite to itself 
and what we have is return-to-itself and we have 
no longer any becoming. For becoming implies a 
unity of opposites and at the same time a differ- 
ence of opposites — it is always from one termi- 
nus to another terminus. He2'el (p. 102) explains 
in his own way this process. "Becoming con- 
tains being and naught as two unities,, each of 
them being likewise again a unity of being and 
naught .... Beginning to be and ceasing 
to be (Entstelien und Vergehen, p. 103) are these 
two unities, each being a union of naught and 
being." Each of these is a form of becoming 
and since they have opposite directions they para- 
lyze or annul each the other. For in ceasing we 
have being passing into naught ; but naught is as 
we have seen only a transition to the opposite of 
itself, namely to being, and this is a process of be- 
ginning. Thus ceasing (evanescence) ends in be- 
ginning (origination). But beginning is the other 
direction ; naught passes into being, but being is a 
self-annulling category and is only the transition 
into naught, or the category of ceasing. Thus be- 
ginning passes into ceasing and ceasing into begin- 
ning. "They do not annul each other externally, 
but each one of these categories annuls itself and 
develops its opposite out of itself." 

Hegel calls attention (under 3, " Auflieben des 
Werdens ") to the equipoise in which beginning 
and ceasing have now been found. Since naught 
and being are in unity and since beginning and 
ceasing are likewise each the immediate producer 



180 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

of the other, we find that our entire category of 
becoming has collapsed. For if we cannot have a 
procedure from and to, we have no becoming. It 
is an abiding rather than a becoming. Each is a 
return to and arrival at itself and not a mere tran- 
sition to its opposite. Hence becoming does not 
truly name the result. "Being and naught are, as 
termini of becoming, only vanishing categories. 
But becoming implies their sustained difference 
( Unterscliiedenlieit derselben). Their vanishing is 
therefore the vanishing of the category of becom- 
ing, that is to say. the vanishing of the category of 
vanishing. Becoming is an unrest that does not 
hold out — it sinks into a peaceful state as the 
result [of its self-contradiction]." 

We must not forget, however, that this result is 
not a simple — neither a simple as being, nor a 
simple as naught. It is a movement or activity 
within itself — a self -repulsion of the simple, 
which however returns to itself as the union of 
the simple with its opposite. Beturn-to-self is 
not becoming, but an equipoise, a movement to 
self-identity. Here we recall Hegel's first en- 
counter with this thought in the Phenomenology 
where he found the total concept of force or 
energy or law of forces, to be the self-repulsion 
of the homonymous and the self -attraction of 
the heteronymous. This is the same thought. 
The simple (or homonymous) can be thought 
only as a self-negating. The self-opposed (or 
heteronymous) is only a self-attracting or rather 
a return to the simple, just as the categories of 



DETERMINATE^ESS. 181 

ceasing and beginning each develop their oppo- 
sites and thus become quiescent totalities. The 
extremes do not have to become, or make a transi- 
tion, for each develops its opposite out of itself 
and becomes thus a totality. The totality cannot 
become, for it already contains all potentialities 
realized. 

Hegel says therefore (pp. 103-104) : " This 
result is the evanescence ( Verschivimdenseyn) of 
the distinctions on which the becoming depended, 
but is not a vanishing into naught ; for that would 
be only to fall back into one of the categories 
which has already been seen to be imperfect and 
to pass over into another, whereas we see that our 
present result contains the outcome of being as 
well as of naught. In fact we have the quiescent 
simplicity that has arisen from being and naught. 
But this quiescent simplicity (1ST. B.) is being ; not 
simple pure being as before, — but being as the 
form (Bestirnmung) of the whole. Becoming has 
therefore passed over into determinate being 
{Daseyn), or in other words into a unity of being 
and naught that has the form of being — the form 
( Gestalt) of the one-sided immediate unity of being 
and naught." 

Here is a very important thought of Hegel. 
"The form of being" means the form of return- 
to-self, the form of self-identity as annullment of 
the opposite. His remark that this is a " one-sided 
unity " hints of the development, a little further 
on, of the opposite one-sidedness, not in the form 
of being, but in the form of naught — namely, the 
categories of finitude and dependence. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

KEELECTIOXS OX THE METHOD OE HEGEl/s EIEST 

CHAPTEK. 

THE student of Hegel who has seized the 
thought of the discussion of being, naught, 
and becoming, will bear in mind the following 
great lessons that he has learned : 

1. Hegel is not " deducing " the other cate- 
gories of his logic from Being as an assumed first 
principle. Being is not a first principle, but only 
the emptiest and poorest of all pure thoughts. 
Hegel finds that this pure thought — called " pure " 
because empty of all ideas derived from experience 
— is not what it is supposed to be. A careful ex- 
amination of it shows it to be a paradox — a 
thought that does not correspond to its definition, 
but immediately contradicts itself — we make the 
simple the opposite of itself by thinking it. Hence 
instead of being a first principle, "a, fixed hypoth- 
esis " as Plato calls it, it is altogether untenable — 
a secondary principle which is seen to depend on 
a primary something else or to be in unity with 
some other principle, and hence to be only a half- 
thought. The whole thought, or at least a more 
complete thought, is discovered in the becoming. 
But further examination discovers that it, too, is 
not a complete thought but one that forms a half 

182 



REFLECTIONS. 183 

of the more complete thought of determinate being 
(Daseyn). In other words becoming can be only 
an arc of the process of Keturn-to-self — a process 
which has the form of being. 

2. The second important observation is that 
Hegel is not treating of mere subjective thoughts, 
mere psychological processes, which may be 
neglected as having no objective validity, but his 
"dialectic" is just as well objective in the sense 
that its results are ontological as well as psycho- 
logical. For it is evident that a pure simple like 
being or naught must be, ontologically, only a 
point of departure. It could not exist or be 
objective, for that would make it a determinate 
being — a self-contrasted being. Becoming like- 
wise is not possible as an ontological category — it 
is a part of the process of self-return and can 
never be found purely by itself. Self-return, if 
stated as a becoming, is always misstated. It is 
like describing an arc of a circle as a straight line. 
No part of the process of self-return is or can be 
merely a becoming. Self-return is the only possi- 
ble form of objective reality — this is the result of 
the first chapter of Hegel's logic. 

3. Equally important is it to notice that the 
earlier categories do not remain "with a sphere 
in which they are still valid." They have been 
refuted and exploded forever, as having truth — 
i. e. as applying to independent and eternal exist- 
ence. They are only finite and imperfect cate- 
gories — only inadequate modes of thinking what 
can be more perfectly and adequately thought by 



184 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

the subsequent and final categories. This is of 
vital importance in dealing with the pantheistic 
wing of Hegelian thinkers. \ If these categories 
have something objectively valid, they will of 
necessity belong to God's thinking as well as to 
man's thinking, and hence there will be finitude 
in God. Hence God will be conceived as thinking 
His own essence in the creation of the world. The 
true view is that the Logos thinks his derivation — a 
derivation eternally past — and thereby gives rise 
to the Creation — Space, Time, Inorganic Matter, 
Gravity, Light, Plant, Animal, and Man.i Creation 
is the Processio and not the Logos nor the Holy 
Spirit. In-as^much as the Absolute must be con- 
ceived as an eternally complete process of Eeturn to 
Himself all forms of finitude must now be annulled 
and eternally annulled in his thinking. The dia- 
lectic appertains only to what is finite, inadequate, 
or incomplete. That must necessarily he annulled. 
How then can it ever exist unless the Absolute 
continually brings it into being? If he thinks 
only his own perfection he does not create the 
finite ? Xo, but his perfect object the Logos, in 
thinking of his eternal derivation, does bring into 
existence finite categories. But these cannot be 
being, naught, becoming, and the other logical 
categories. The categories of creation are space, 
time, matter, life, etc., as we shall see when we 
take up Hegel's Idee. The categories of being, 
naught, etc., are the pure thoughts under which 
man thinks true substantial existence — a series of 
thoughts which begins with the most inadequate 



REFLECTIONS. 185 

category that lies above experience and ends with 
the most adequate category, namely Absolute 
Mind. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

THE CATEGORY OF DETERMINATE BEING (DASEYN) 
OR QUALITY. 

DETERMINATE being is not simple entity or 
simple being, but it has the form (Gestalt) 
of being, which is that of return-to-self. The 
simple is, as before seen, one of the two termini of 
becoming ; becoming is the process of transition 
from beginning to ceasing and from ceasing to be- 
ginning ; hence a process of return to itself 
through an opposite. This form of being, there- 
fore, has two phases : first, that of the return to 
being through naught and second that of the 
return to naught through being— a negative and a 
positive return, both of which moreover have the 
form of being, because both have the form of 
return-to-self which gives self-identity. Hegel 
calls these two forms of determinate being "reality 
and negation." 

Eeality is what we found to result when being 
returned through naught to being, or beginning 
returned through ceasing to beginning. Negation 
is what we found as naught returning through 
being to naught again, or as ceasing returning 
through beginning to ceasing. 

Thus we have two threads, and we shall always 
have two threads to our dialectic, hereafter. The 

186 



CATEGORY OF DETERMINATE BEING. 187 

dialectic will cease when these two are absolutely 
identical as " Idea." When identical there cannot 
be any annulment of either through the other — 
each will then be an entire personality. 

The difference between reality and negation is 
deeper than that between being and naught, or 
between ceasing and beginning — the identity is 
also deeper, for they both have return-to-self. 

Hegel announces the dialectic of determinate 
being as quality (p. 106) in the two forms, reality 
and negation : "Determinate being is reflected 
into itself, in these two categories (jbestimmtlieiteii)" 
and this is explicitly stated (gesetzt) as the cate- 
gory of "somewhat." He explains (p. 107) the 
expression "posited" as used to signify what is 
actually developing and manifesting itself in the 
object, and not what is merely a result of an exter- 
nal comparison, or of some anticipation on our 
part of what will happen. 

" Being and determinateness are not related to 
one another as general to particular. But both 
are coextensive . . . determinateness thus isolated 
as existing determinateness is quality, a quite sim- 
ple and immediate determinateness." 

Here we have the logical ground given us for 
defining quality. Quantity and quality are species 
of determinateness. Quality is that determinate- 
ness which is one with the being of the object ; if 
the quality is changed the being is changed and 
vice versa. Quantity, as will be seen later, is not 
identical with the being but may be changed with- 
out changing the being. If a lake grows in size it 



188 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

still remains a lake. But the quantity is connected 
with the being to some degree, for if the lake is 
made very small it is called a pond and not a lake. 
On the other hand were a salt lake to be increased 
in size by a thousand miles,, it would be called a 
sea or ocean. 

Reality is quality with its "moment" of being 
accentuated, while negation is likewise quality 
with the "moment" of naught accentuated (p. 
109). Let us see the genesis of "somewhat" 
(Etivas). 

SOMEWHAT (ETWAS). 

Although reality and negation are distinguished 
from one another, yet they are identical as quality, 
as determinate being, and as containing both be- 
ing and naught as "moments," and they likewise 
are each a "return-into-self." Reality is a return- 
into-self of being ; negation is a return-into-self 
of naught. But each form of return-into-self is 
likewise a process of positing its other, namely : 
being, in its self -mediation, first posits naught ; 
and naught in its mediation likewise begins by 
positing being. Remembering this, we shall see 
that reality in the process of "accentuating" its 
being, has first to "accentuate" negation, and ne- 
gation has likewise to " accentuate " reality. Hence 
there is a synthesis of these two categories and we 
have a new category which Hegel calls " Etwas" 
(somewhat). Somewhat is a reality to which 
belongs negation as a limit — it is a limited reality. 
There must be also two forms of it, a positive and 



CATEGORY OF DETERMINATE BEING. 189 

a negative, because there are two forms of return- 
to-itself, reality and negation. Reality return- 
ing to self is " somewhat " and negation returning 
to self is " other/" Somewhat and other are the 
two forms of determinate being. Here (in " some- 
what^) reality and negation are united, and their 
distinction is annulled or cancelled so that it is an 
internal distinction (Insichseyn) — a very impor- 
tant thought of Hegel, which he proceeds to dilate 
upon. 

The category of "somewhat" is the first negation 
of negation (p. 114) "as simple, existent relation- 
to-itself." This is the germ of all individualization. 
It is this insight which reveals the necessity of all 
universale or generals to be individuals, or to have 
the form of simple self-relation. "Determinate 
being (p. 114) life, thought, and the like have 
existence only (bestimmt sicli wesentUcli) as exis- 
tent beings, living individuals, thinking egos, etc. 
This principle (Bestimmung) is of the highest im- 
portance, for without it we should hold fast by 
those generalities" and believe in "deity rather 
than a personal God," and in general we should 
have a pantheistic unity in which all multiplicity 
and definiteness of character are lost. The nega- 
tive of the negative in this category of "some- 
what " is however only the germ of subjectivity or 
selfhood. Its internality is quite vague: "It 
will, by and by, in the categories of being-for- 
itself and idea (Beg riff) gain the concrete inten- 
sity of selfhood." 

Those who take Hegel's absolute to be an 



190 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

abstract universal in which the individual is swal- 
lowed up would do well to study this page (114) of 
the first volume of the larger logic and keep this 
in mind afterwards in reading the entire work. 
In this way they will come to see that "personal- 
ity " is not an idle, meaningless designation of the 
Absolute Idea. In f act, Hegel's philosophy may in 
truth be said to be the philosophy that everywhere 
refutes the abstract universal and everywhere 
demonstrates the individual as the true and abid- 
ing. But his " individuality " is not a mere par- 
ticular — it is universal as well as particular, and 
hence this individual "posits "or "accentuates" 
his universality by combining into institutions — 
the family, the state, the church, etc. 

"Somewhat," as we have seen, is a new form of 
return-to-self and a process, just as much as being, 
naught and becoming were processes. In thinking 
" somewhat " we think reality and negation in 
unity and do not name quite ail that we think 
when we name it "somewhat." For we have the 
positing of another, as well as a somewhat, before 
our minds. Somewhat and other express the two 
sides of the one thought of determinate being. 
The somewhat is limited by the other ; it is de- 
pendent on the other. Its dependence constitutes 
its unity with the other. To depend on another is 
to have one's self in another, so to speak. Hence a 
dependent being is outside its true self and it man- 
ifests or shows this emptiness by its dependence. 
The exhibition of this dependence is change. For 
change shows a foreign influence and proves that 



CATEGORY OF DETERMINATE BEING. 191 

the changing thing is not itself a whole, but a part 
of a larger whole that includes the thing and its 
other. 

Here we have arrived at the idea or definition of 
finitude. That is finite which is a somewhat over 
against another and dependent on that other. 
"The finite is not in itself, but in another/' says 
Spinoza. That is to say, it is not self-active and 
the cause of its own attributes, but its characteris- 
tics are impressed upon it by outside influences. 
This is the true insight into the category of qual- 
ity. To think things under the category of qual- 
ity is to think them under the relation of thing 
and environment, or somewhat and other. This is 
treated more in detail by Hegel under the category 
of finitude (pp. 115-140). 



CHAPTER XVII. 



FINITUDE. 



ON arriving at the idea of dependence upon 
external influence, we have come to the cat- 
egory of finitude. A somewhat that is not a true 
self, but has itself in another, or, in other words, 
is an appendage of something else, is changeable 
and finite. We must turn this thought round on 
its various sides, as Hegel does. But it is neces- 
sary first to point out the fact that we have not yet 
done with, or passed beyond the category of some- 
what and other. The " dialectic" has not brought 
us to "finitude/' as though it were a subsequent 
category in the series. Finitude is incidental to 
the category of someAvhat and other, just as 
return- into-self and the form of being were inci- 
dental to becoming when its two termini were 
taken as two species of becoming (ceasing and 
beginning). 

Finitude is the form of this relation. A thought 
of a determinate being as a somewhat opposed to 
another is the thought of what is essentially finite 
and changeable. Because whatever is in the some- 
what is there through the influence of the other, 
and not through self-determination or self-activity. 
Therefore the somewhat is nothing but the mani- 
festation of the other, and hence a process of per- 

192 



FIBTITUDE. 193 

petual change, since external influence manifests 
itself only in the form of change. 

But here we have a multitude of shades and dis- 
tinctions, some of which are very important in the 
Hegelian terminology. These are, first, "in itself," 
or potential (an sich). The somewhat is taken for 
an independent instead of a dependent being 
which it is. This being-in-itself is opposed to the 
being-for-another which essentially belongs to it 
(p. 115). "The category of 'somewhat is a be- 
coming, and as such it is a transition whose two 
termini are also somewhats — or somewhat and 
other — and hence this sort of becoming is change, 
a sort of concrete becoming. The category of 
somewhat involves in its very definition the cate- 
gory of change" (das Etwas ver cinder t sich 
zunaclist nur in seinem Begriffe). 

2. The determinateness of being is at first re- 
garded as belonging to the somewhat, and not as 
derivative from the "other." The other is like- 
wise regarded as an independent somewhat, (a) 
Each of these, therefore, is a being-in-itself. But 
upon more careful thought (b) it is discovered that 
this being-in-itself has negation appertaining to it, 
and hence is determined in itself. Its determinate- 
ness is therefore not merely derivative from the 
other, it is characteristic form, or condition (Be- 
schaffenlieit) of the object. This is the negation 
of the being-for-others and hence we have here 
the category of limit ( Grenze) which is (c) the im- 
manent definition of the somewhat, and consti- 
tutes its finitude (p. 116). For if the determi- 



194 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

nateness is essentially " limit, " it involves finitude. 
For in its limit a somewhat finds its other. 
This must not be conceived as though the somewhat 
and the other were in juxtaposition, the one here, 
the other there, for this is only half of the thought, 
but the somewhat depends on the other ; its being- 
is a part of the other, and hence it can be itself 
only by changing or perishing — this is essential 
finitude. 

The treatment of this subject is very prolix, oc- 
cupying 25 pages (10,000 words). Hegel was jus- 
tified in this detailed treatment, however, by the 
prominence given to the category of " infinite pro- 
gress " by the Kantians and Fichteans. Morality 
was treated under this category, and immortality 
was deduced from the impossibility of becoming 
moral within a finite time. This detail of treat- 
ment, however, makes the subject more difficult 
for the reader in our day. We have, it is true, the 
category of infinite progress, and it is quite as im- 
portant as ever ; but it masquerades no longer un- 
der the questions of morality, but is included under 
those of psychology. AYe are told that infinite 
progress denotes inconceivability — the finiteness 
of our power of conceiving or thinking. This is 
Hamilton's ''law of the conditioned." Agnos- 
ticism results from this insight into the nature of 
the finite to be an infinite progress. The further 
insight into the necessity of the true infinite as its 
ground emancipates the thinker forever from the 
category of " quality " and its agnosticism. 

Hegel, after the manner of Aristotle, enumerates 



FIXITUDE. 195 

in tedious inventory the shallow views that arise 
from the sway of this category, and shows how 
each one of them dialectically passes over into the 
next deeper one by a little more insight into the 
subject. 

The reader of Hegel will, however, make a bad 
mistake if he superstitiously takes for granted that 
Hegel has exhaustively discovered and discussed 
exactly all the subordinate categories which may be 
found on the way between pure being and quantity. 
For there is simply an indefinite possibility of 
shades and determinations of thought here. The 
caprice of thought is the only limitation to the 
multiplication of steps in the dialectic progress. 
The chief rubrics, it is true, are to be found in 
the thought of all nations risen above barbarism; 
but at one epoch there will be one application and 
at another epoch another application made of 
minute distinctions, such, for example, as are bor- 
rowed here from the vocabularv of the romantic 
school of thinkers who sentimentalized over human 
finitude and incapacity to know God as he is, and 
over human impotency to attain perfect virtue. 

The sub-categories treated by Hegel here are 
being-in-itself and being-for-others, destination, 
actual condition, and limit, [An-sicli-seyn, Seyn- 
fur-anderes, Bestimmung, Beschaffenlieit, Grenze) 
as already named. These lead to finitude {Encl- 
Uchkeit) and under the latter come " restraint " 
and "ought" (Schranlce and Sollen), with a note 
(Anmerkung) on "thou canst because thou 
oughtest," etc. 



196 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

His next rubric is the "transition of the finite 
into the infinite," and this closes the chapter on 
"Finitude." But his paragraphs on "'the reciprocal 
limitation (Wechselbestimmung) of the finite and 
infinite " show that he has not left the sphere of 
qualitative limitation as yet. He comes to " the 
affirmative infinitude " (p. 148) and makes his 
transition to " being-f or-itself " (Fur-sich-sei/)i) 
which is "the qualitative being completed., or the 
infinite being " (p. 165). " Being-f or-itself " is 
independent being — in other words, such being as 
can be by itself. Hence it must be self-determined 
being, and not being-through-another, which is es- 
sentially finite being. Independent being and in- 
finitude are the same, according to Hegel, as he 
has told us. 

But what is this independent being and how 
have we arrived at it? Moreover, how does this 
lead us out of what is qualitative into what is 
quantitative ? These are the questions that assail 
us here, and their answer opens one of the most 
interesting discussions to be found in this science 
of "'pure thought." Once able to see this answer, 
we shall be inwardly competent to solve that ques- 
tion of agnosticism and to refute the Hamiltonian 
doctrine of "the conditioned " which has proved 
a bar to all philosophic progress for so long a time. 

This insight is in itself a very simple one. AVe 
acquire it at a glance when the essential conditions 
are before us, and afterwards there is no difficulty 
in applying it. But Hegel's treatment of the sub- 
ject is calculated to mislead us unless we have 



FIXITUDE. 197 

already obtained this insight — for the reason above 
stated, namely : He canvasses many of the shal- 
low views of the finite before coming to the essen- 
tial insight which guides his investigation. 

Let us concentrate our attention on this essential 
point first. A brief statement of the doctrine of 
"determinate being" may be made as follows : 

1. The categories of pure being and pure naught 
are found to be termini of becoming and as such 
they are ceasing and beginning. 

2. Becoming, with ceasing and beginning as 
its termini collapses, because each of its termini is 
a return-to-itself through its other — it has the 
form of being or self -relation. Its form of being, 
however, is not pure being but determinate being. 

3. Determinate being lias two phases — realit}^ 
or return-into-self of being, and negation or return 
into-self of naught. But each of these, being 
duplicate, is likewise the process of producing its 
other and hence of itself through its other ; reality 
is in truth reality -negation-reality, or return into 
self through negation, and this is the idea of 
"somewhat," or of that which (a) limits another, 
(b) is limited by another, and (c) affirms itself 
against that other. Likewise negation is negation- 
reality-negation, or " reflected-into-itself "negation 
— or the negation returned into itself through the 
something of which it is the other. 

4. Both are some w hats and each is also another 
to its other. This is, however, only an arbitrary 
consideration of our own : it is, in the language of 
Hegel, an "external reflection" and does not go 



198 hegel's logic. 

for much. There is no true dialectic in an "ex- 
ternal reflection." To say that "something is 
another to its other " and hence that "something 

passes over into its other " belongs to the shal- 
lowest order of verbal quibbling. It is of the same 
quality as that verbal dialectic which we have dis- 
cussed above regarding being and naught which 
proceeded to say that pure being is naught and 
that naught is the same as pure being, and hence 
each is an immediate vanishing of one in the other. 
Whereas, our "hence" should conclude that we 
have two words for the same thought and not that 
we have a transition between two thoughts. That 
a somewhat is another to its other is an external 
reflection, and although we may suspect that it 
suggests a deeper objective process to be found in 
the very nature of the ••'somewhat," we cannot re- 
gard this verbal suggestion as of any value. That 
a " somewhat " regarded from another point of 
view is also "other" to something else is an out- 
side consideration and this is the reason whv Hegel 
calls it an "external reflection'*' — an expression 
which he always uses with a tone of contempt. 

5. But disregarding this external reflection and 
turning our attention to the nature of the category 
of "somewhat," we discover its essential self- 
contradiction — it is other to itself, and hence 
essentially changeable and transitory. It is of the 
nature of a somewhat to be dependent on its envi- 
ronment — to have (in Spinoza's words) its being 
in another. Its character or quality exists only in 
relation to another, hence as we said it is depend- 



FISTITUDE. 199 

ent on this other for its being,— dependent for its 
selfhood, so to speak. 

6. Here comes in the paradox which our habit 
of external reflection hides from us : since the 
somewhat is dependent on the "other "for its 
being and its being is really in the " other," we 
may see that our somewhat is in very truth an 
" other " to its own being. For it is an other to 
that other which is its true self. Ergo : the some- 
what is other to itself. Q. E. D. Hence the 
somewhat is itself a contradiction. 

7. Examining this, our paradox, further, we 
see the genesis of some interesting categories. In 
the first place the somewhat cannot exist except as 
a process of change. (This is like the develop- 
ment of our category of becoming from the 
"simple.") Hence the category of finitude or 
transitoriness makes its appearance with this in- 
sight. It involves also the idea of limit or 
boundary beyond which the somewhat loses its 
identity. 

8. Again : related to its true self, which is in 
its "other," the present somewhat is only an im- 
perfect realization, and this is Avhat we may call 
"present condition" (Bescliaffenlieit) while the 
true self is the destination (Bestimmung) for 
which the somewhat is tending in its changes, and 
hence arises the category of ought-to-be or is-to-be 
{Sollen), whose realization is prevented by the 
restraint (Scliranke) that appertains to finitude. 
For the category of quality divides the totality 
into two phases, somewhat and other, and refuses 



200 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

to include both in their unity. It stubbornly 
views only one at a time. 

9. Hence arises the category of infinite pro- 
gress. Seeing the essential relativity of the some- 
what — its dependence on another — we transfer our 
attention to the other. But this " other," too, is a 
somewhat, or limited being, and is again depend- 
ent on another. We pass on to another, and 
another, again. This we may do ad infinitum, for 
we never arrive at a final " other." Each is a 
somewhat which depends on a somewhat-else be- 
yond it. This is the infinite progress or what 
Hegel calls " the reciprocal determination of the 
finite and the infinite." We have only to get an 
insight into what this presupposes to see the true 
infinite itself. 

10. AVe cannot see the infinite progress until 
we see that the somewhat is of such a nature that 
it depends on its "other" and cannot exist with- 
out it, and in addition to this it must be seen 
that the "other" is likewise a somewhat depend- 
ing also on its "other." Then it is seen that the 
progress to the "other" is endless just because 
each step posits another step like the first — there 
is no end to the repetition possible. Each step 
forward is the evolution of a new "other" which 
has to be reached. But how do we know that a 
new "other" will always arise on our view as we 
arrive at the "other "that is now visible? Only 
because we see the final nature of this " some- 
what." It must be its own "other." Hence we 
posit the progress only after we have seen the 



fusttude. 201 

totality of the " somewhat." We must have the 
true infinite before our mind when we say "and 
so on forever. " For the progress is infinite only 
for the reason that the true infinite makes it possi- 
ble. . 

11. The infinitude of space is supposed by 
Hamilton to be an infinite progress rather than the 
true infinite. But the contrary is the fact. We 
see the true infinitude of space and affirm the infi- 
nite progress only after seeing that space is infi- 
nite. Space is of such a nature, we say, that any 
limits to it posit or affirm space beyond them ; 
they cannot exist outside of space without space to 
exist in. Hence instead of limiting space they 
affirm its continuance. Space can only be limited 
by space, and hence it can only be continued and 
is infinite. In other words, space is its own 
"other." That which is its own "other" is of 
necessity infinite. 

12. The somewhat is of necessity its own other 
— this is the fundamental truth in regard to qual- 
ity. The " other" on which the dependent being 
depends is its true self. Hence in the change of 
the finite we have only a process of the manifesta- 
tion of the self of the finite. We have arrived at 
the category of being-f or-itself . 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

INFINITUDE. 

WE ascend from the part to the whole — from 
the somewhat and other to the unity of 
their process which is independent being or being- 
for-itself. The first aspect of this independent 
being is its infinitude. There are many aspects to 
it, but this is the most striking one because it is 
so directly opposed to that characteristic of quality 
which leads to agnosticism and despair of the in- 
tellect. 

There is no more hopeless condition of mind 
than to be caught in the meshes of the category of 
quality, or first immediateness. Great honor is 
due, not to Hegel merely, but rather to Plato, who 
first discovered the road out of this Slough of De- 
spond. What Plato has laid down in his tenth 
book of The Laivs and in other places, and which 
Aristotle has restated in the sixth and seventh 
chapters of the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, 
Hegel has worked out in a new method and treated 
exhaustively in this first division of his Logic. 

The gist of his doctrine as shown in the pre- 
vious chapter is that independent being underlies 
dependent being, or that self-determined being is 
presupposed by being which depends on something 
else; or, in still other words : the partial or incom- 

202 



INFINITUDE. 203 

plete being presupposes a totality; the partial or 
imperfect is dependent, but the total is independ- 
ent. 

Infinitude is the quality of this independent 
being which Hegel calls " being-f or-itself " (Filr- 
sicli-seyn). Infinite being is being that is its own 
other — being that relates to itself, and can relate 
only to itself. 

But the infinite is not an empty One. It is not 
the mere negation of the finite — such an infinite 
would be the pure being or naught which we have 
seen refuted once for all. There can be no more 
any return to the category of pure being. The infi- 
nite being has also the finite within it as one of its 
" moments" (or complemental elements). It ne- 
gates and preserves the finite. It contains all the 
being that the finite contains and also all the being 
that the finite does not contain, It is the fulness 
of being. It is the affirmative being of the " some- 
what " and the "other," but it does not omit their 
distinction or difference; for it is a process that 
contains all the movement of change but is at the 
same time more than change, namely a process of 
returning into self. It is a change that annuls 
itself. For it changes from one to another, but 
from the other returns to itself. It finds itself in 
another. Hegel uses for this important thought 
the expression " Mit sich selbst zusammengehen" 
literally "to go together with itself" or "to be 
continued by another" (see page 140). 

To illustrate this : space is infinite because the 
"other" of a given space is also space — space thus 



204 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

"goes together with itself" or is continued by 
its other. Space is of such a nature that its envi- 
ronment must also be space; hence it is infinite. 
Time also must have an environment of time. 
Any given time presupposes time before it and 
time after it. It is continued by its limits and 
hence is infinite. 

Conscious being also is an illustration : the self 
as subject is also its own object — its own '''other" 
and is thus continued instead of limited by that 
" other;" hence it is infinite. The mind does not 
find any object except in so far as it recognizes its 
own categories in it. To recognize is to find what 
is already familiar — to find one's self, so to speak. 
It is "to go together with one's self." 

The '•'somewhat" is and must be its own 
" other." This is the necessary truth which con- 
stitutes the insight of this dialectic movement 
from the finite to the infinite. 

Consider the somewhat as having its limit in 
another. This makes it dependent on the other 
for its quality. "Without the other it would not be 
determinate or real. It would be pure being or 
pure nothing. But this fact constitutes its depen- 
dence. It receives its being from an external 
source. It is what it is because the "other" is. 
Hence the somewhat has its being through another 
and in another. Its self or identity is in the other. 
We may look to the ••' other" to find the reality 
of the somewhat. It exists in relation, or is itself 
a "relativity." 

But upon reflection we see that we may speak of 



INFINITUDE. 205 

the " somewhat" more adequately from the stand- 
point of the " other." It is evident that it is itself 
an " other" to its true self. For it is another to 
the other upon which it depends. This is the 
nature of the dependent — to be " other" to itself. 
This is its self-contradiction — and this makes its 
dialectic. 

The other upon which the somewhat depends 
is its true self. The independent being is the self 
of all that depends on it. 

Here we change our point of view because our 
object has lost its individuality, so to speak — the 
dependent has vanished in the independent being. 
We have before us the independent being which is 
infinite and also for-itself . Now we see that the 
process of alteration or change that constituted 
the finitude of the somewhat is only its process of 
seeking its true self. It is not a process of perish- 
ing so much as a process of becoming its true self. 
It is a "going together- with-itself." An affirma- 
tion rather than a negation. It is an activity of 
realizing what was before only a possibility or 
potentiality. The " being-in-itself " is becoming 
"being-for-itself." In Hegel's words, its An-sich- 
seyn is becoming Fur-sich-seyn. 

Looked at from the standpoint of " somewhat " 
we see the finite as the reality, and all is transitory 
and evanescent. Looked at from the standpoint 
of independent being we see the infinite to be the 
true reality and all change to be only development 
and self-realization. " Eeflection into itself," when 
seen partially or from the standpoint of the van- 



206 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

ishing " moments," the somewhat and the other, 
is change and the decay of the finite. Reflection- 
into-self seen as a totality is the process by which 
self-identity is sustained and true independence 
realized. It is the vanishing only of the shadow, 
and the persistence of the reality. 

With the sub-category of infinitude, Quality has 
reached its highest point of perfection. In fact 
there now emerges from it another category, that 
of Quantity. This, however, we shall see in the 
next chapter, on independent being, or what is the 
same, infinite being, or being-for-itself (Fiir-sich- 
seyn). 



CHAPTER XIX. 

BEIKG-FOB-ITSELF. 

I TRANSLATE this category of Fihr-sich-Seyn 
by the expression " independent being" for 
the reason that the word " independent " has no 
tinge of verbal quibble about it. There is no " ex- 
ternal reflection" in it. The "finite" may or 
may not imply the "infinite" — that is a matter 
for external reflection, unless we mean by the "fi- 
nite " or "imperfect" what we mean when we use 
the expression "dependent." For by dependence 
we mean derivation from another, and more than 
this : we mean derivation from another and pres- 
ent support through another. The dependent 
being, in fact, has its being in another. If we 
conceive a being as derived once in some former 
time, but as since having become self-existent, it is 
not now dependent, but independent. 

Independent being is the form of any and all 
totality. Every whole of being is and must be an 
independent being, for otherwise it would be only 
a part (or "moment") of a larger totality and 
thus not a whole, itself. 

Every whole or totality is, as independent being, 
also a self-determined being, a self -activity. For 
otherwise our category of independent being would 
be merely the category of pure being or naught 

207 



208 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

again. The category of return-into-self or self- 
relation is the process of " going-together-with- 
itself " and this explains the relation of the finite 
to the infinite. The infinite is continued reflection 
into-itself of what, viewed apart, is the finite. 
This is an activity of self-determination. In this 
independent being, therefore, we have a multiplic- 
ity of distinctions : for there is a self as deter- 
mining and a self as determined, i. e. distinctions 
of active and passive ; moreover, there is sameness 
of self under the distinction. Taken immediately 
— that is to say, taken as categories of being are 
taken — we have the category of one-ness opposed 
to multiplicity and this leads to the category of 
quantity, or presupposes it. Let us note, with 
Hegel, how this idea of one-ness enters and de- 
velops. 

All determinate being has proved itself to be 
part and portion ("moments") of independent 
being or being-f or-itself . Because every determin- 
ate being, every somewhat is a dependent being 
which has its self or characteristic distinction, in 
another. The source of support for dependent 
being is a self-active, independent being. The de- 
pendent being is not a unity ; it is not a whole or 
totality, but only an effect of manifestation, an in- 
definite multiplicity which is not quantitative be- 
cause not made up of independent and identical 
units. The idea of one-ness arises first when we 
conceive qualitative totality. The somewhat as 
opposed to other is not a one, nor is the other a 
second one ; conceived thus the " other " would 



BEIKG-FOR-ITSELF. 209 

not be the limit and quality of the somewhat. But 
the somewhat depends upon the totality and by 
this dependence manifests the unity of the total- 
ity: so, too, does the other ; and the other of the 
other. All these qualitative limits manifest the 
unity of the whole and the whole is a one. Here 
we have clearly before us the idea of the one — the 
one-ness of the somewhat and the other. 

The one is "negative unity " in which the dis- 
tinctions of somewhat and other all vanish, because 
they all "posit" or presuppose the totality as their 
sole reality — the one is their reality. They are all 
for it, that is to say, for the one totality. This 
characteristic is their quality and Hegel calls it 
their being-for-one (Seyn-fihr-Eines) (p. 168). 
This " being-for-one " is what he called "being- 
f or-other " when treating it within the category of 
the "somewhat." There it was dependence on 
another ; here it is dependence on the including 
totality. 

The " being-for-one " is the dependence of the 
"moments" (somewhat, other, etc.) on the in- 
cluding totality. But viewed from the side of 
that totality, or the being-f or- itself , it is depend- 
ence on itself or its self-relation, its independence. 
In other words, the being-for-one of the depend- 
ent "moments" is the being-for-itself of the inde- 
pendent being. The manifestation of dependence 
is the manifestation of unity (of the dependent 
with that on which it depends.) Not only this, 
but the manifestation of dependence is the mani- 
festation of the being-for-itself in some sphere 
which seems at first to be beyond it. 



210 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

Now we come to the second consideration, which 
is more difficult and more astonishing. The de- 
pendent looked at anew from the point of view of 
the independent being must assume new phases. 
We must revise our account of it. 

From the category of somewhat and other the de- 
pendence (Seyn-filr-Anderes) seemed to render the 
being finite or partial and imperfect. Now that it 
is seen as the product of self-determined being 
(for independent being must be self-determined) 
each dependent being becomes a total also, and 
hence it becomes a one. This is the surprising re- 
sult. It is the " dialectic " through which Hegel 
comes suddenly upon his "one and many" (Fines 
und Yieles) and further on to his "'attraction and 
repulsion " (pp. 174, 181) in his discussion of Fihr- 
sicli-Seyn. 

The independent being or being-for-itself is 
self -deter mining — as subject it is determining, as 
object it is determined ; hence it is a self-duplica- 
tion and there can be no independent being on any 
other terms. The being-for-itself is independent 
because it is a reflection-into-itself out of its 
"other." That which seems to be its "other" 
proves to be dependent on it. But the " other " 
of the independent being is also a totality, and 
independent, just because it is the result of the 
self-determination of the independent. Hence 
the "other" is a "one." It must be noted, how- 
ever, that the "other" is a "one" by an addi- 
tional characteristic, that is to say, by something 
added to it as " other," namely, " reflection-into- 



BEIXG-FOR-ITSELF. 211 

itself." This is precisely what was found to belong 
to its nature when we considered it as finitude and 
found that the finite is a part of the infinite. It 
was finite because changeable, but change is the 
transition of a somewhat as dependent into its own 
true being, its independence. Hence its change is 
and must be a "reflection-into-itself." The same 
feature that discovers to us infinitude underlying 
finitude, discovers also to us one and many ones in 
the place of somewhat and others. When we see 
only dependence, isolatedly, we use the category of 
somewhat and others ; when we see somewhat and 
other in its ground of reflection-into-itself or total- 
ity we see ones or units. Thus we have almost ar- 
rived at quantity. The insight needed to see quan- 
tity instead of being-f or-itself is this : every one is 
within itself multiple and every multiplicity is 
also a unit. In other words, we must see infinite 
divisibility. Each unit must appear a composite 
of other units, which again are composites of 
other units, and so on ad infinitum. Then each 
unit is an aggregate of ones and all units are con- 
stituent ones of including units. This idea is 
quantity. 

But how do we see this necessity of infinite di- 
visibility ? Every somewhat is being-in-itself 
and being-for-others and is hence somewhat and 
other within itself. Hence, too, every being-for- 
itself is a unity of opposed units within itself and 
each unit is likewise again a self-opposition of 
units, and hence being-for-itself is a quantitative 
unity or an aggregate of units, each one of which 
is an aggregate. 



CHAPTER XX, 



THE FIXITE AXD THE INFINITE — A COMMENTARY 

OX HEGEI/S DISCUSSION OF THESE IDEAS. 



IN this chapter I propose to pass in review some 
of the most noteworthy passages containing 
Hegel's doctrine of the finite and infinite, of de- 
pendent and independent being, pointing out the 
statements which verify my interpretations as 
given in the last three chapters. 

THE "OTHER." 

Hegel's third form of the "other" (p. 117) is 
that of the isolated other, or the other in its self- 
relation, and this of course is other of itself or the 
essentially "other." "It is the roerepov of Plato 
. . . not the 'other' of a somewhat, but the 
other in-itself (an Una selbsf), that is to say the 
other of itself. Such a self-other according to its 
essential being is physical nature, which is the 
( other ' of mind . . . nature is the other in 
itself, that which is outside itself, existing in 
space, time, and matter, which are forms of ex- 
ternality" (p. 118). 

"The other for itself is the other in itself, 
hence, the other of itself, or, in other words, the 
other of the other" (p. 118). All dependent 
being so far as it is dependent is thus outside of 

212 



THE FIXITE A:N"D THE IXFIXITE. 213 

its true being, for the latter is that upon which 
it depends ; it is therefore other to its true self 
and shows this unity and separation by depend- 
ence. A dependent being is essentially an 
"other." "To be other of itself is to be abso- 
lutely non-identical with itself, hence self-nuga- 
tory, and therefore changeable. But it also re- 
mains in self -identity/' for the reason that the 
other into which it changes is already its true 
self and "it therefore only goes together with 
itself (p. 118). 

"IX-ITSELF." 

" In the sphere of being, the self-determination 
of the idea {sicli-bestimmen cles Begriffs) is only in 
itself or [potential] and it is called transition 
(ubergehen); moreover the determinations of re- 
flection like somewhat and other, finite and infi- 
nite, [reflecting determinations = categories which 
suggest or ' reflect 9 one another, just as positive 
suggests negative or finite suggests infinite] al- 
though they suggest each the other are neverthe- 
less regarded as having independent existence" 
(p. 122). In the sphere of essence ( Wesen) on the 
other hand instead of transition between independ- 
ent categories, we have "reflection in each other" 
(Scheinen in einander) in such categories as posi- 
tive and negative, cause and effect, which if 
isolated each from the other and considered ab- 
stractly have no meaning." 

"What is in-itself [or potential or implicitly 
contained] (an-sich) and what is ' posited' or ex- 
plicitly stated (gesetzt) should be carefully discrim- 



214 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

inated — that is to say, the categories as they are in 
idea (i?n Begriff) and as they are when existing for 
others (sey end-fiir- Anderes) should not be con- 
founded. This distinction belongs only to the 
dialectical evolution and is not known to the meta- 
physical philosophizing nor to the c critical' [or 
Kantian] which is also a species of the ' metaphys- 
ical"' (p. 122). 

This important remark should be noted as re- 
ferring to the justification of the method which 
treats first of the immediate and then of the medi- 
ated categories — and treats all the categories first 
in their immediateness, adducing their undeveloped 
phases and afterwards their more developed phases 
in their order. Every category taken in its pure 
immediateness is pure being. But taken as such 
it is utterly devoid of significance. Its definition 
is entirely ignored. There are many grades of 
mediation on the way from pure immediateness to 
the true implication of a category. This fact that 
every category has various grades of mediation is 
truly a great discovery, but it may be variously in- 
terpreted. The first and most natural reflection is 
this : there are various degrees of insight possible 
to the person who thinks a given category. The 
shallowest insight thinks all categories on the dead 
level of immediateness, whether said categories 
have a deep or a shallow import. The insight that 
is somewhat advanced in the stage of reflection on 
the other hand thinks all the categories with some 
mediation — mediation by means of relations. 
Everything is relative and its relations to others 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 215 

are essential to its existence, is the doctrine of this 
standpoint — a being is nothing, taken out of its 
relations. The deepest insight sees everything as 
a whole of self-determination — it is either inde- 
pendent itself or a part or phase of independent 
being. There are three necessary phases of think- 
ing, and correspondent to them are the three sets 
of categories — (a) of immediateness, excluding all 
relation, even self-relation — these are the catego- 
ries of being ; (J) of mediation, in which relation 
or relativity is explicitly stated as implied (as 
" positive " implies "negative," and cause implies 
effect). These are the categories of essence 
( Wese?i). The mind in this stage is prone to use 
even the categories of being with a sense of the 
mediation that is presupposed, but not expressed 
by them, (c) The categories of absolute media- 
tion or of self-mediation which express both 
mediation and immediateness, or, in other words, a 
mediation that is completed by return-to- self, are 
categories with which the deepest insight does its 
thinking. These categories Hegel treats under 
" idea " (Begriff — also translated " notion ") mean- 
ing by this self-active-being. 

The insight into the categories of reflection is 
apt to lead a thinker to use even the categories of 
being in the sense of categories of essence. In this 
way arise such philosophic expressions as "the 
being of being," " true being," " being for itself," 
"the absolute one," "the infinite being," "the 
real in all reality," et cetera. These are all cate- 
gories of being but used in the sense of essence. 



216 hegel's logic. 

But although mediation is a deeper thought than 
immediateness, it is still an imperfect thought un- 
til it is united with the latter in a higher category. 
Self-activity is an immediate that includes medi- 
ation. In it, cause and effect are one— in the 
sense that self-determination implies that the 
self is subject and also object — the self is mediated 
through self-negation. 

Using the mode of expression adapted to mental 
pictures we can describe the first stage of thinking 
as that in which one of the three phases of reality 
comes to consciousness. It may be symbolized by 
three lines, thus : -)f- three phases function, but 
only one of these is conscious. The second stage 
of thinking may be symbolized thus : •-¥-, only 
one of three essential phases remains still uncon- 
scious. The third stage is symbolized as 4A, all 
phases being conscious ; this is dialectical think- 
ing. 

The first stage is conscious of the self-relation 
but not of the antithesis involved in mediation, 
while the second stage sees the mediation but not the 
self -relation ; but the third stage sees the self- rela- 
tion which underlies the mediation; it sees return- 
into-self as the ground of all finitude and depend- 
ence or relation-to-other. 

LIMIT. 

" A somewhat is therefore as an immediate de- 
terminate being (Daseyn) the limit opposed to 
another somewhat, but it has this limit attached to 
itself (es hat sie an ilim selbst) and is somewhat, 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 217 

just because of the mediation that takes place 
through and by means of this limit which is also 
its own non-being. It (Grenze, the limit) is the 
mediation through which the somewhat and the 
other both are and at the same time are not " (p. 
128). Since quality depends on limit, the limit is 
the affirmation of each, the somewhat and its 
other, but the limit is also the mutual negation 
and hence that in which each ceases. Hence the 
limit seems to be distinguished from the definite 
being (Daseyn) of the somewhat and the limit 
seems to be distinguished from both somewhat. and 
other, indeed to be a sort of middle term between 
the two in which both cease (Sie ist die Mitte 
zwischen heiden, in der sie aufhoren). This devel- 
ops the contradiction of quality. The somewhat 
is through that which it is not and hence it is de- 
pendent and finite. " The somewhat with its 
immanent limit, posited as the contradiction of 
itself, through which it refers to what is beyond 
itself, and is impelled toward it (liber sich getrie- 
len) is the finite." (p. 130). 

FINITUDE. 

"Non-being constitutes the nature of finite 
things (das Nichtseyn Hire Natter, ihr Seyn, 
ausmacht)" (p. 131). "The being of finite 
things as such is the possession of this germ of 
decay as their innermost being (ah ihr Insichseyn) 
— the hour of their birth is the hour of their 
death." 

The difficulty of overcoming this category of 



218 HEGEl/S JLOGIC. 

finitude is commented on by Hegel (die Unmittel- 
barkeit der Endlichkeit) (p. 131): " Because it is 
qualitative negation in its extreme form (auf die 
Spitze getriebene) the simplicity of its determina- 
tion does not leave room for affirmative being dis- 
tinct from its complication with death and decay 
— hence this sorrow over finitude. The category 
of finitude, on account of its qualitative simplicity 
of negation which brings into sharp contrast with 
being its nugatoriness and perishableness, is the 
most stubborn category of the understanding (die 
liartnackigste Kategorie des Yerstandes) — it is the 
negation as fixed essentially (an sich fixirte)." It 
is the chief category of the understanding or what 
theologians call the "mere human intellect," as 
opposed to reason, or to the divine intellect, or to 
the dialectical or speculative knowing. It is 
" stubbornly " intrenched in the position that 
whatever is determined, is determined through an- 
other, and therefore limited by an environment, 
and thus finite. That which is not finite but in- 
finite, must be, according to this view, an indeter- 
minate, empty somewhat devoid of all qualities 
or attributes and the same as "pure being" or 
naught, or as Hamilton's "unconditioned." 

By this dilemma of finitude or empty infinitude, 
the understanding fortifies its position against all 
attacks. For it is of no possible use to set up an 
empty infinite over against the finite. The finite, 
all that there is of it, ever so small a portion of it, 
is better than the whole of an infinite nothing. 
An empty absolute or infinite is only a vacuum to 
thought and a vacuum of real existence. 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 219 

This stubborn fortress of agnosticism can be 
kept secure against all would-be gnostics or spec- 
ulative thinkers so long as its assumption is not 
discredited — its assumption that there are only 
two alternatives, either the finite or the empty in- 
finite. So soon as a second kind of determinate 
being is shown to be possible, namely a self-deter- 
mined, the understanding is confounded and its 
"stubborn" fortress is leveled to the earth. 
When further it is proved that all determinateness- 
through-another, or in other words all dependence 
or finitude, presupposes self-determination, or con- 
crete infinitude, or true independent being as its 
ground, the problem is completely solved. We 
now see that the finite is only a "moment" of the 
total process of self-determination, namely the 
" moment " of self -opposition which is involved in 
the act of determining the self. For the self is 
dirempted into active and passive, or determining- 
self and determined-self. This opposition seen by 
itself without the identity underlying (i. e. with- 
out the self which is the same in both) gives us the 
categories of somewhat and other, and finitude. 
Finitude is made possible only by real infinitude. 

But one may not at first perceive that self-deter- 
mination is infinitude. He must note that the 
self is in .this activity its own "other " and hence 
continued by it instead of limited by it — just as 
we saw in the examples of space and time. He 
must notice the totality of this category and con- 
sider its consequent independence. An indepen- 
dent being cannot be limited through another, be- 



220 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

cause it can have no "other" to it that is essen- 
tial to its being or to its manifestation. 

Hegel in this place (p. 132) seems npon a super- 
ficial examination to deal in verbal quibbles, for he 
says, in substance, that the understanding persists 
in this lament over the category of finitude, and 
sets up nugatoriness as the characteristic of all 
things and thus makes perishableness itself to be 
imperishable and absolute. For perishableness is 
represented as not passing over into its other — that 
is to say into its affirmative quality — but by this 
very persistence it is suddenly transformed into its 
other ; it is eternal. By attempting to set up fini- 
tude as persisting against infinitude or perishabil- 
ity against immortality, it makes perishability per- 
ish by becoming perennial. But Hegel has the 
rare faculty of looking behind the content of 
thought and seeing its essential form. He sees 
that the validity of this position of the understand- 
ing depends on the use of the category of finitude 
as absolute by itself. But such absoluteness or 
isolation is utterly self-contradictory. The depend- 
ent if thought as absolute and cut off from the 
independent changes instantly into the thought of 
the independent. Its dependence perishes. For 
if something can exist by itself it is independent. 
If we read Hegel as proving the infinite by the 
argument that those who assert the finite to be the 
only existence in the universe and the only possi- 
ble existence — that these assert by this that the 
finite is infinite — we reject this as a verbal quibble 
for the reason that our "finite" has not changed 






THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 221 

its nature, becoming infinite, and we have not 
arrived at a higher thought. The negative and 
relative remains negative and relative whatever its 
amount. But the new thought, the real thought 
of the infinite comes in when we turn our atten- 
tion to the nature of the totality as totality. While 
the relative is dependent on others the total- 
ity is self-determined. The finite is a fragment 
and imperfect, the total is perfect and yet self -re- 
lated, self- opposed, self-determined, and hence de- 
terminate like the finite, but also one and every- 
where the same like the infinite. Change the idea 
of finite to dependent (or essentially finite) and the 
verbal quibble disappears. 

the kesteaint (schkanke) and the ought 
(sollen). 

The idea of otherness in the idea of quality, or 
in other words the idea of relativity involved in 
qualitative being, gives rise to the idea of destina- 
tion (Bestimmung) as of something not yet real- 
ized, some internal possibility not yet made actual. 
Hence too we have by contrast the idea of an 
actuality which is not yet what it ought to be. 
This actual condition (Beschaffenheit) should how- 
ever be mended and made to correspond to the in- 
ward destination. Here we have given to us the 
ethical application of this category of finitude. 
The actual condition (Beschaffenheit) regarded as 
an obstacle to be removed in the process of realizing 
the ideal is viewed as a restraint (Schranke) and 
the destination (Bestimmung) as the ideal becomes 



222 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

the moral command or ought (Sollen). Eestraint 
is the same as limit ( Grenze) with the addition of 
the idea of negation. The limit which ought to 
be negated is a restraint (p. 135). 

The idea of ought is a synthesis of somewhat 
and other — for it is the idea of other posited as the 
true ideal nature of the somewhat — this somewhat 
is in its essence the other and is a self-contradic- 
tion when not that other. Hence the ought pre- 
supposes infinitude as the truth. So, too, the idea 
of restraint posits infinitude. For it also contains 
both ideas, the somewhat and the other. The 
somewhat is limited by the other and } T et ought to 
be the other. It is prevented by the other from 
being the other. Without the other, that is to say 
relieved of the restraint, it would be the other. 
Here the category of " other " is in self-contra- 
diction again. The other prevents itself from 
being infinite or from absorbing the somewhat. 
But this very contradiction is the manifestation of 
infinitude ; for the other limits itself — the re- 
straint which preserves the somewhat finite is the 
act of the other limiting itself. Self -limitation is 
the manifestation of infinitude. Thus the moral 
"ought" opposed to the imperfection of the actu- 
ally existing state is the actual infinite negating 
limitations which are already self -limitations. 

But here the verbal quibble seems to intrude 
again: for the "other" as "restraint" seems to 
be different from the " other "as " ought." The 
conclusion that the infinite lies as ground at the 
basis of the process seems to depend on a confusion 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 223 

of the two " others" specifically distinct as ought 
and restraint under the vague including term 
" other. " 

But invoking again the unambiguous expression 
of this thought by the word " dependent/' we see 
that the conclusion is not a fallacy (in the third 
figure of the syllogism). For the dependent is 
limited by the independent of which it is a phase. 
The total independent is the ideal or " ought" of 
the dependent which at the same time is posited 
by the independent, and hence its special limita- 
tions are there because thus posited by the inde- 
pendent. Hence, the ought and the restraint are 
both posited by one being, the independent. But 
this is not all. A conscious being implies inde- 
pendent self-existence. Hence, too, responsibility 
for all of its determinations. Hence the moral be- 
ing feels guilt if it does not square all of its 
deeds by the standard of the moral law. There- 
fore a consciousness of ought implies present in- 
finitude — or in other words independence and self- 
otherness. 

THE INFINITE. 

The finite is and can be only the part of a pro- 
cess within the infinite, the dependent is always 
within the independent. " The infinite is not the 
mere negative annulment (Aufheien) of the finite, 
but it is the nature of the finite to become the infi- 
nite. The infinite is its affirmative destination or 
what it is in truth when its potentiality (an sich) 
is realized." (p. 142). The infinite opposed to the 



224 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

finite is the conception of the untutored reflec- 
tion. It thinks infinite and finite as somewhat and 
other, although the infinite already contains both 
sides of the opposition. As such crude thought 
it has found the category of "infinite progress." 
But it possesses the category of the true infinite in 
the background of its consciousness as that which 
makes possible the thought of infinite progression. 
"And so on forever" implies that there is a 
necessity that the " other" into which we are pro- 
ceeding must always remain the same. The other 
in such a case is always the self-same and the pro- 
gress is only a going-together- with-itself (mit sich 
selbst zusammengelien) and this is a process of re- 
turn to the self instead of negation and perishabil- 
ity (p. 153). 

" The infinite is in fact the process in which it 
[the totality] reduces itself to one of its own deter- 
minations [or 'moments'], namely to an antithe- 
sis of finite opposed to infinite, and annuls this 
self-distinction thus making it affirmative [instead 
of negative, for it is now a negation of negation] 
and by this process of mediation it is the true infi- 
nite" (p. 155). 

"This infinite is not a dead unity, but a process. 
It is not a mere becoming ; but a process of 
return-into-itself, of relation to itself" (p. 155). 

The finite is not the really existent ; it is the in- 
finite that really exists. But the category of 
"reality "is not after all adequate to the expres- 
sion of the truth of the higher categories (p. 
156V. 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE. 225 

IDEALITY. 

The reality which the finite possesses is buried 
in a deeper reality — the first negation which con- 
stitutes finitude is buried in the second negation 
which as the infinite is the negation of negation. 
"Negation is therefore now to be defined {be- 
stimmt) as ideality; the ideal (ideele) is the finite as 
it exists in the true infinite, namely as a determi- 
nation or content which is to be discriminated, but 
yet is not independent and self-existent (nicht 
selbststandig seyend) but only a 'moment.' 
Ideality has this concrete signification which is 
not perfectly expressed by the statement that the 
infinite is the negation of finite beings" (pp. 156- 
157). In this passage occurs a remarkable typo- 
graphical error, at the bottom of the page 156, the 
word " identitdt" should evidently be " idealitat" 
Hegel did not mean to say " negation is thus to be 
defined as identity" but "negation is thus to be 
defined as ideality" The context shows this 
clearly. 

In the true infinite the finite exists ideally — that 
is to say dependent being exists in the independent 
being as subordinated — as posited and yet an- 
nulled. For it is not the total, but a one-sided 
manifestation of the total. This conception of 
ideality as a higher idea than reality because it is 
the comprehension of the true relation of "reality" 
to the totality, is the important thought which in- 
troduces us to the idea of being-for-itself (fur- 
sich-seyn) as the true independent being. " Ideality 



226 



may be called the quality of infinitude . . „ 
. as annullment of finitude and of the empty 
infinite opposed to the finite, it is the return-to- 
itselfj or relation to itself and hence has the form 
of being [for all that has self-relation has the form 
of being] .... it is a being that rests 
on negation of negation or self-related negation 
and is to be called being-f or-itself " (p. 157). And 
again (p. 159): "The solution of the contradic- 
tion of the infinite progress is not in the recogni- 
tion of the equal validity of the two sides [t. e. of 
the somewhat and other — the destination and 
limit], nor of their equal invalidity, but of their 
ideality, the fact that they are merely i moments' 
[complemental elements, as acid and alkali in a 
salt] in their difference and mutual negating." 
"Ideality contains the sides of this contradiction 
concretely solved and reconciled, and not merely 
overcome abstractly. And it is the nature of spec- 
ulative thinking to seize opposed thoughts and 
unite them affirmatively in a higher thought " (p. 
160). 

In this thought of ideality we have all the 
seeming reality of the "somewhat and other" 
united with all the nugatoriness which made its 
appearance in the categories of finitude. 

"'The proposition that the finite is ideal, consti- 
tutes idealism .... the doctrine that the 
finite is not a true existent. Every philosophy 
is essentially idealistic .... the only ques- 
tion being how far it is consistent in carrying 
out its doctrines .... for the principles set 



THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE.. 227 

up to explain things — namely, water or matter, 
or atoms are not things in their sensuous concrete- 
nesSj but thoughts ; as for example, Thales did not 
conceive water merely as water existing [in the 
rivers and seas] but also as the potentiality or 
essence of all other things. Hence all other things 
were explained as grounded through something 
else, namely, water, and not as self-existent. They 
were posited through something else, that is to say 
they were ideal." 

When a being loses itself in another it is said to 
be ideal (ideel). Our finite determinate beings are 
now seen to be lost in an all-including process of 
infinite being which posits them as well as annuls 
them and hence holds them within it as ideal. 
This process has the form of being and is a unity 
and self -identity and yet the source of endless dis- 
tinction within itself. It is being-for-itself . 



OHAPTEE XXI. 

BEING-FOK-ITSELE — A COMMENTARY OX HEGEl/s 
DISCUSSION OF THIS IDEA. 

HEGEL commences his third chapter with the 
words: "In Being-for-itself qualitative 
being reaches its perfection ; it is infinite being. 
Being at the beginning was indeterminate [i.e. pure 
being]. Determinate being (Daseyn) is annulled 
being {aufgehobene Seyn), but its annulment is 
merely an immediate affair [not a self -mediation 
but a mediation through 'other' as in the case 
with ' somewhat ' ] ; it contains, therefore, only the 
primary, immediate form of negation. In deter- 
minate being, being is still retained; both being 
and negation are united in it in a simple unity 
which, however, because of its simplicity unites 
them imperfectly, leaving them non-identical with 
one another; their unity is not yet posited. Deter- 
minate being is therefore the sphere of difference, 
of dualism, the field of finitude. Determinateness 
in this sphere is a relative affair and not absolute 
determinateness [substitute for the word 'abso- 
lute, the word ' self ' in Hegel's writings — abso- 
lute determinateness means self-determinatenesss]. 
In being-for-itself the difference between being and 
determinateness or negation is posited and also 
resolved into identity (ausgegliclien). Quality, 

228 



BEI3TG-F0R-ITSELF. 229 

other-being, limit, as well as reality, being-in-itself, 
ought, etc. are the imperfect mental images ( Ein- 
bildungen) of negation in the category of being ; 
in them the difference of being and negation is 
the ground-thought. But in the category of in- 
finitude negation passes over into the posited nega- 
tion of negation and is the simple relation-to-itself, 
and consequently it contains in-itself (t. e. poten- 
tially) the complete reconcilation and identification 
{Ausgleichung) of negation with being — that is to 
say: absolute determined being " (pp. 165-166). 

The progress, therefore, according to Hegel has 
been from being and naught as utterly different 
and opposed thoughts — a complete dualism — to the 
insight into the fact that the negative is only the 
activity of being — only its self-determination. We 
now see the negative as the essentially constituent 
element of being. 

Being is of no validity unless self-determined — 
unless it is itself a self -negation and the negation 
of its negation. 

This "absolute determination" or "perfected 
form of quality" is self-determination as being-for- 
itself, the first form of individuality. 

This is, in its immediateness, one ; in its media- 
tion it is many, and farther on repulsion and at- 
traction ; thirdly, in its self -mediation quality passes 
over into quantity — the repulsion and attraction 
come into identity through the fact that each by 
itself develops into the other. This we shall ex- 
plain in the course of the present chapter. 

" Being-for-one " (Seyn-fiir-Eines) is Hegel's 



230 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

expression of the dependence on the whole which 
one of the "somewhats" or " others" has within 
the infinite or being-for-itself. Each one of its 
phases is a " moment " or a somewhat whose iden- 
tity is lost in the whole. It is "ideal," to use the 
expression commented on in the preceding chapter. 
This (ideality) is one of Hegel's most important 
thoughts and should be studied until perfectly 
familiar, inasmuch as it perpetually recurs in his 
writings. On page 168, for example, speaking 
of this being-for-one : "It is only a being for 
another and because of this it is also a being for 
one ; it is only the one ideality of all that is con- 
tained in the being-for-itself as a moment of it." 
"The ideal is necessarily for one, but it is not for- 
another; the one for which it is is only itself." 
Because in the being-for-itself the somewhats and 
others have vanished as such; their distinctions 
are no longer valid; their ideality consists in the 
loss of their individuality in the one. The one is 
the self and the ideal is accordingly not a depen- 
dence on another but on its true self. 

"The Eleatic 'Being/ as well as the Spinozistic 
' Substance/ would have to be explained as the ab- 
stract negation of all determinateness without pos- 
iting the same in the form of ideality" (p. 170). 
The negation is too complete — it annuls the indi- 
viduality through another, but does not realize it 
in another. It is the lack of this insight into the 
true dialectic of finitude that constitutes panthe- 
ism so-called — the doctrine that there is one only 
being and that all else is maya or illusion. 



BEING-FOR-ITSELF. 231 

The difficulty of expounding this category is 
spoken of by Hegel on page 174 in a manner cal- 
culated to terrify the raw student : " The mo- 
ments that constitute the idea (Begriff) of the One, 
in Being-f or-itself , develop separately as follows : 
(1) negation in general ; (2) two negations ; (3) 
consequently two that are identical ; (4) but which 
are directly opposed to each other ; (5) relation to 
itself or identity as such ; (6) negative relation 
which is at the same time self-relation. 

" These moments appear separately here," Hegel 
adds significantly, " because the form of imme- 
diateness which being-for-itself takes on [through 
its absorption of all distinction into self-distinction, 
in other words through the dependence of all its 
moments] is also attributed to its moments and 
each one of these moments is posited as a self-ex- 
isting (eigene seyende) determination ; and yet 
these moments are inseparable, notwithstanding 
their independence. Hence of each determination 
its opposite may be affirmed. This contradiction 
it is that makes the difficulty here — it is the con- 
tradiction involved in the isolation {aistracten 
Bescliaffenlieit) of the moments." 

All of these phases are to be found in any self- 
activity or self-determined being. One must take 
note that negation, and not being, is the sub- 
strate or underlying basis of all things. All 
being as we have seen is result or "form" of 
self-relation or self-return. Being without this 
self-return is pure nothing. But the elements of 
self-relation or self -return are negative : relation 



232 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

is negation. Self-relation is and must be, there- 
fore, self-negation. 

Let us comment on the six "moments" named 
above as belonging to the idea of being-f or-itself . 

1. "Negation in general." We have the nega- 
tion of the somewhat and likewise of the "other;" 
also negation of the finite and of the abstract or 
empty infinite ; we have negation in general, in 
short negation by itself. But negation by itself is 
negation of itself or self-negation, and hence we 
have arrived at the second "moment." 

2. "Two negations." These are a first nega- 
tive and a second negative which is the negation of 
the first; for both of these are involved in self- 
negation. 

The human understanding is an imperfect faculty 
which sees some "moments" but not all "mo- 
ments " of the object. It unites some by synthesis 
but fails to unite others. This partial insight into 
the "moments" of true being (or, rather, we may 
say all of the degrees of this partial insight, or the 
sphere of such imperfect insight) is called "the 
understanding." Xow the understanding may see 
negation alone, or it may see two negations, or it 
may see that these two negations are identical or 
are opposed. All such insights are partial and yet 
they lead to practical differences in the world of 
opinion and action. These partial insights of the 
understanding furnish guiding principles for indi- 
viduals and for nations; hence it is well not to de- 
spise this investigation into the pure thought dia- 
lectic which reveals to us the fundamental rationale 



BEIKG-FOR-ITSELF. 233 

of the genesis and dissolution of these partial cat- 
egories. Being possessed of this knowledge it be- 
comes possible " to minister to a mind diseased" — 
diseased by a partial view — and cure it by leading 
it to the dialectic that widens it to a higher cate- 
gory. 

3. "The two negations are the same:" the ne- 
gation that annuls the " other " does this by mak- 
ing still another. But we cannot find an ultimate 
"other" — each "other" has its "other," and 
hence we see the fourth " moment," namely the 
necessary opposition of the two negations. 

4. " These two negations are absolutely op- 
posed." The one annuls the other but is annulled 
at once by another — so that the disappearance of 
one negation is accompanied by the simultaneous 
appearance of a new one. This leads us to the 
synthesis which is a far deeper and truer thought, 
namely the fifth "moment." This "moment" 
contains all the preceding — but " in their truth," 
as Hegel would say. 

5. "Eelation to itself, identity as such." All 
self -relation gives us "the form of being." We 
have noticed this thought of Hegel making its 
appearance first in the dissolution of the category 
of becoming — the return into itself of beginning 
and of ceasing through their opposites, constitutes 
" determinate being ; " and subsequently it often 
appears ; for it is one of the most important in- 
sights that Hegel has discovered. Here it gives 
us the self-identity or one-ness of the being-f or- 
itself . When we come to the first part of the sec- 



234 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

ond volume,, treating of Essence, we shall find 
Hegel giving what he evidently considers the most 
fundamental and thorough discussion of this gene- 
sis of identity out of the self-relation of the nega- 
tive. The reader will recollect also that it was 
used first by Hegel as the insight which in the 
Phenomenology of Spirit leads out of "Force 
and the Understanding" to the "Begriff" or the 
idea of self-activity. Consciousness became self- 
consciousness when it perceived itself to be the 
necessary substrate of the world. The negation 
related to itself is continued or affirmed by its 
" other." If the relation (and all relation implies 
difference or distinction) is to the self, the distinc- 
tion is at once annulled and there is identity again. 
Only where there is persistent mediation is there 
persistence of distinction. The mediation is re- 
duced to immediateness when negation relates to 
negation. But there is another phase to be con- 
sidered : the relation of negation to itself is nega- 
tive, and hence the result is to negate the self and 
produce what is different. Hence we have the 
sixth "moment." 

6. "Negative relation which, however, is di- 
rected to itself." The negative self -relation is a 
production of distinction instead of identity. But 
as Hegel shows in the discussion of "Eeflection" 
(Vol. II. pp. 15-26) this very production of dis- 
tinction is itself the very self -relation which pro- 
duces identity again. For the negative activity 
sustains itself by producing negative activity. But 
this is the production of what is identical with 



BEIKG-FOK-ITSELF, 235 

itself and therefore it is simple identity and as 
such devoid of negation. Hence it (the produc- 
tion of identity) is the annulment of the self -activ- 
ity. But such annulment is only the production of 
distinction — the production of what is different 
from the self-activity. But this very annulment 
keeps alive the activity and is again identity. The 
student may suppose this to be a process of ver- 
bal quibbling, but let him think out the objective 
thought which is involved here and he has t 3 
secret of Hegel. 

These " six moments" above discussed as in- 
volved in the thought of being-for-itself, are, we 
now see, (or ought to see) not properly coordinate 
" moments," but rather successive stages of insight. 
But for the understanding they will be taken for 
coordinate when first discovered. The negative 
aspect of independent being is that which first at- 
tracts us. We see a totality and the first evidence 
of its independence is its exclusion of others and 
sole reliance on itself. This is its one-ness. 

Hegel points out that it is the ideality of the 
being-for-itself — the lack of self-existence of its 
moments, as we have explained — that produces 
this one-ness (p. 174). This characteristic of one- 
ness which is so prominent in being-for-itself will 
be applied to all of the "moments" so that each 
" moment " will be looked upon as independent 
and self -existent- — in short, as a being-for-itself. 
This gives us the explanation of several important 
distinctions that necessarily arise in human thought 
on its way towards self-comprehension. And these 



236 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 



distinctions are used every day by everybody in 
thinking the content of experience. The atom 
and the void, the one and the many ones, repulsion 
and attraction, and the union of repulsion and at- 
traction in the idea of quantity — these are the 
chief distinctions discussed. "We will take them 
up in detail. 

" The one is not capable of transition into an- 
other; it is unchangeable" (p. 175). It is not de- 
pendent on another, but is self-dependent; its ac- 
tivity must be, not change, but a " going-together- 
with-itself." Again, it is indeterminate so far as 
" others/* are concerned, and this is due to the 
"ideality "of its determinations — they are not 
self -existent, but dependent, and therefore the 
one is a vacuum so far as qualitative distinctions 
go. It is the void (p. 176). Empty space is simply 
the reality, of distinction superadded to the unreal- 
ity of the parts distinguished. The points in space 
are everywhere really separated, but they, the 
points, are unreal. Here is the atom and the void 
underlying our thought of space. 

But the atom excludes the void and is excluded 
by it. Here is an example of the superinduction 
of independence on one of the moments, an appli- 
cation of the idea of being-for-itself to one of its 
moments as Hegel explained above. But this mu- 
tual limitation of atom and void is a lapse back 
out of the thought of being-for-itself into the cat- 
egories of finitude; namely, the atom is a some- 
what and the void is "another," as Hegel acutely 
points out (p. 176). " The one or atom is the ne- 



. 



BEING-FOR-ITSELF. 237 

gation in the form of being, and the void is the 
negation in the form of non-being" (p. 17). But 
as the one is already the self-relation of negation 
it is the void in itself. The void as negating and 
excluding is too a one, and hence we have arrived at 
the thought of many ones mutually excluding— or 
at the idea of repulsion. Perhaps (as remarked by 
Eosenkranz in his critique of the Hegelian logic), 
the words repulsion and attraction are too sugges- 
tive of concrete experience to deserve a place 
here in the exposition of the genesis of the pure 
categories of quantity. But no harm will result if 
the reader is careful to keep Hegel's definitions in 
mind. "The negative relation of one to itself is 
repulsion" (p. 179). That is to say, the exclusive- 
ness of the one is conceived by the understanding 
as negating all distinctions within itself, and by 
this very act as distinguishing itself as a whole 
from its own determinateness, and this produces 
the antithesis of atom and void, which further and 
more carefully seized, is the thought of the one 
and many For the one is such a thought as in- 
volves self-opposition — in the sense that the one 
self can be one only through this duplication of 
itself. The second is likewise self opposed and so 
on ad infinitum. Here we have what Hegel calls 
"repulsion;" and moreover, "attraction:" for the 
negative act of excluding, which generates the 
many ones, is likewise a single or unital act which 
annuls the independence of the ones and makes 
them "ideal" again (or reduces them to moments 
of the total one). Here we have arrived at the 



238 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

idea of quantity. The being-for-itself is still 
qualitative when we regard it as the self-related 
negative which distinguishes and excludes,, which 
contains somewhats and others in an "ideal" con- 
dition (i.e. as moments.) But when the being-for- 
itself imparts its one-ness to each somewhat and 
other, making them ones over against it or within 
it ("repulsion"), and at the same time includes 
them all as "ideal" (moments), or as emptied of 
their qualitative distinctions (" repulsion" annulled 
by "attraction"), we have quantity. The repul- 
sion is the annulment of dependence, the attrac- 
tion is the reassertion of it. Being-for-one presup- 
poses dependence (or the "ideality" of the some- 
what and other); but it at once undermines, so to 
speak, this presupposition by negating dependence 
(repulsion causing the "atom and void"). "Ee- 
pulsion passes over into attraction, the many ones 
into a single one. The two, repulsion and attrac- 
tion, are at first different, repulsion being the reality 
of the ones, and attraction being their ideality," 
(p. 186). But the ideality is necessary in order 
to have one or ones at all ; and if we have "ideal- 
ity " we necessarily get real one and ones. Hence 
the two cannot be separated, or rather, each is the 
genesis of the other. " Eepulsion is the positing 
of the many, and attraction is the positing of the 
one ; the latter is the negation of the many, and 
the former is the negation of the ideality of the 
ones in the one ; therefore attraction is attraction 
by aid of repulsion, and repulsion is repulsion by 
aid of attraction" (p. 188). Hegel shows the one 



BEING-FOR-ITSELF. 239 

in the other (p. 190). "The repulsion of the 
real ones is the preservation of the one (the total- 
ity) through the reciprocal exclusion of one-an- 
other, [for this exclusion has the form of finitude 
— somewhat related to another]. . . and hence this is 
attraction as the ideality of the one. Moreover, 
the one according to its nature (an sich) ought to 
be devoid of relation to another ; but this category 
(das Ansich) has been long since annulled, and the 
being-for-itself has taken its place, and now the 
nature of the ones (seine? 1 Bestimmitng nach) is to 
become many, as we have already seen. The at- 
traction of the really existing ones is their ideality 
[their reduction to "moments"] and the positing 
of the one (totality) in which the many ones an- 
nul themselves and thereby produce the one (inde- 
pendent being) ; this positing of the one is an act 
of repulsion on their part," (p. 190). Here he 
finds repulsion in that very ideality (or abdication 
of independence) that characterizes the separate 
moments of finitude as they are retained in being- 
for-itself. They repel their independence by pos- 
iting an excluding unity, which swallows them 
up. 

Hegel summarizes the transition from quality to 
quantity thus (p. 191) : 

"The qualitative has for its fundamental deter- 
mination the immediateness of being : in this the 
limit and the characteristic quality (Bestimmtheif) 
is identical with the being of the somewhat, in 
such a way that the somewhat loses its identity 
with each change. Hence its finitude [or perisha- 



240 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

bility] is posited [expressly stated]. On account 
of the immediateness of this unity [of being and 
deterniinateness] in which their difference has 
vanished, although it still remains potentially, (an 
sich) [/. e., in the unity of being and naught], 
this difference [of being and determinateness] falls 
outside of their unity [and offers itself] as other- 
ness. But this relation to another contradicts 
that immediateness necessary to qualitative deter- 
minateness and its self -relation, [without self -rela- 
tion there can be no immediateness — hence to place 
what is essential to the nature of the somewhat in 
another, is to destroy its immediateness]. This 
otherness is removed through the Infinitude of the 
being-for-itself which retains the difference [of 
being and its determinateness] in the form of ne- 
gation of negation, and holds it within itself [in- 
stead of in another] , and realizes it in such cate- 
gories as unity and multiplicity, and by this has 
elevated the category of quality to its true unity 
— not its immediate unity [but its self-mediated 
unity] of being and determinateness, so that now 
its determinateness is in harmony with its being. " 
That is to say : any quiescent being, or any being 
whose nature is determined by outside influences, 
is not in accord with true being, and cannot exist 
as such. But a being whose own act determines 
its character has true quality because it harmon- 
izes with being, i. e., the being which is self-rela- 
tion is not contradicted by its character, which is 
also self-relation as self-determination. The dis- 
cerning reader will see by this summarizing remark 



BEISTG-FOR-ITSELF. 241 

how deep and how comprehensive the thought of 
Hegel has been in this discussion. 

Now that we have a one that is many, and 
many that are one, we have quantity. A one that 
is not divisible and hence a unity of other ones,, 
and at the same time a unit or an aggregate of 
ones, is not a quantitative one. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

QUANTITY. 

ALL determination is quantitative. This is a 
dictum ascribed to Schelling. But we,, too, at 
this stage to which we have arrived might make 
the same assertion. For we have seen that all 
qualitative determinateness is " aufgehoben" or 
reduced-to-a-moment of a higher category, to wit: 
of quantity. The step is a very simple one when 
seen at a glance. All determination must be a 
phase of self-determination. But self-determina- 
tion includes (a) self as determining and (b) self 
as determined — a duplication of the self, so to 
speak. All determinateness considered as the im- 
mediateness of self-determination must be quanti- 
tative ; for quantity is the immediateness — that is 
to say, the first and least mature — or least devel- 
oped — stage of self-activity. 

We must hold in view steadily the " Begriff" — 
the idea of self -activity as the ultimate and true 
principle. Hegel, as we have shown in our intro- 
duction, must have reached this thought before he 
began either his Logic or his Phenomenology, for 
only after seizing that idea could he see that all 
phases of consciousness and all categories of think- 
ing are more or less perfect expressions of this 
highest principle, and that their shortcomings 

242 






QUANTITY. 243 

will be manifest in each category or phase of con- 
sciousness on dialectic examination. The dialectic 
will show the defect of each as a nisus or struggle 
to get beyond its own definition to a higher defini- 
tion. The idea of the finite will contain a contra- 
diction which will cause its annulment in the in- 
finite. Its unity of being and determinateness 
lacks mediation, and therefore it is obliged to de- 
pend on external mediation, on the " other ;" this 
destroys it, and the larger process, which includes 
both its affirmation and its negation, makes its ap- 
pearance as the infinite and being-for-itself . 

Hegel's task, after gaining an insight into the 
first principle, was to explain all things by its light. 
It was not to invent all things — not to create the 
facts, but to explain them, by showing their agree- 
ment with the necessary presuppositions. 

In the explanation of these categories of pure 
thought he was to show the lower and inadequate 
categories as attempts to seize the idea (Begriff) of 
self-activity — attempts which failed because only 
one or more phases of it were seized and the others 
were omitted. 

The first and lowest phase of pure thought must 
necessarily be pure being, because it is the simplest 
—as the terminus from which we begin — identical 
with naught because it could have only the empty 
form of self-relation and be utterly void of con- 
tent. The form of being is self-relation. Pure 
being is the form of self-relation but without deter- 
minateness and therefore without a self to relate or 
be related. As such, pure being is exactly the same 



244 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

concept as pure nothing, which is utter emptiness 
and negativity considered substantively — that is 
to say considered as self-related. It is not the 
same concept, however, as that of non-being ; for 
non-being contains an expression of dualism and 
has the form of relativity to another, namely to the 
being of which it is the negation. 

We have seen the successive phases evolved — be- 
coming with its two phases beginning and ceasing, 
their "return-into-self "and the rise of determined 
being (Daseyn); its two phases of reality and ne- 
gation and their return-into-self as somewhat 
(Micas) the category of " other " and the phases 
of "being-in-itself " (or undeveloped potentiality 
— Ansicliseyri) , being-for-others (or dependence), 
destination, limit, ought and restraint, change, 
finitude; the other of the other, and the "going- 
together-with-itself," which is another expression 
for " return-to-itself " or reflection; the infinite 
progress, the true infinite ; the being-for-itself, 
with its phases — being-for-one, one and many, re- 
pulsion and attraction. Finally we have quantity, 
and this thought that all cleterminateness is quan- 
titative. 

But as quantity is only the immediateness of 
self-activity we are sure that it is not an adequate 
category for the exjDression of ultimate truth, and 
that our principle, "all determinateness is quanti- 
tative/'' will have to be set aside further on. Hegel 
must have seen that quantity is inadequate when 
he first came to it, because his method is that of 
the " Begriff" or of self -activity, and hence it 



QUANTITY. 245 

must have been evident to him that any category 
that does not explicitly and adequately state self- 
activity is an imperfect one and will cancel itself, 
when tested in the role of universality. 

And yet, quantity is more adequate than imme- 
diate quality to express the truth of the absolute. 
For while quality makes deter minatenesrttJ be im- 
mediately one with being and therefore demands 
dejoendence on an outside determiner, quantity 
makes determinateness to be the result qf self- 
activity — it is the difference of the self frohi the 
self, — the self-opposition of the one. This view 
looks straight towards genus (or species) and 1 its 
included individuals in their external aspect. The 
universal, or generating cause repeats itself in in- 
dividuals, ones, totalities which, however, are 
" ideal " elements of larger totalities — and thus 
are quantities. 

No material thing could exist, if it were not for 
this self -repetition. For there would be no homo- 
geneity and hence no aggregation. Without conti- 
nuity of the same with the same there could be no 
quantity, and without quantity no masses and no 
molecules. Hence no material being. Thus it is 
that we may say here that all determinateness is 
quantitative. Though it may be something more 
and higher than quantity, it cannot be any less. 

THE SUB-CATEGORIES OF QUANTITY. 

Quantity is the indifference and non-identity of 
being and its determinateness, just as quality is 
their identity. Hegel alludes to the ordinary 



246 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

definition of quantity in mathematics which 
reads : " Quantity is what may be increased or 
diminished." " To increase/' says he, st means to 
make a quantity larger, and to decrease means to 
make a quantity smaller. Hence this definition 
amounts to saying, that ' quantity is that whose 
quantity may be changed/ This is an imperfect 
definition because it uses quantity to define quan- 
tity." This reminds us of Bardolph/s definition of 
accommodated: "accommodated — that is, when a 
man is, as they say, accommodated," etc. 

Under quantity, Hegel treats of (a) pure quan- 
tity, (i) continuous and discrete quantity, (c) the 
limitation of quantity [arising through the unity 
of continuity and discreteness]; (d) "quantum," 
or limited quantity, which is number ; (e) exten- 
sive and intensive quantum, and their unity in an 
infinite progress (the " progressions" or " series"). 
(f) The quantitative infinitude. This quantita- 
tive infinitude he shows to rest on the idea of 
ratio wherein two numbers — quanta — are in rela- 
tion to each other so that the value of the whole 
is mediated by both numbers and neither expresses 
by itself any absolute value; — take the terms of a 
fraction for example. Under quantitative ratio, 
therefore, we find the more complete investigation 
of the quantitative infinitude, and its sub-topics 
are (g) the direct ratio, (h) the inverse ratio, (i) 
the ratio of powers (Potenzenverlidltniss, which 
means the ratio of the number to itself when it 
is raised to a power by multiplying it by itself). 
This leads to Measure (Maass) the third great di- 
vision of the Logic of Being. 



QUANTITY. 247 

Connected with the discussion of the essential 
categories of quantity there are a succession of 
notes or remarks (Anmerkungen) in which Hegel 
has discussed important applications of his in- 
sights to the solution of vexed questions. They 
are the following : 

(1) Eemark on the definition of quantity (pp. 
202-3). 

(2) On Spiuoza's definition of quantity as of two 
species,, pure and determinate ; on the relation of 
pure quantity to space, time, matter, and the ego. 
He says that the ego has pure quantity — "as an 
absolute becoming-other, an infinite separation or 
all-sided repulsion tending to the freedom of being- 
for itself, but which remains absolutely simple con- 
tinuity, the continuity of universality, or of being- 
by-itself [Beisichseyns=hemg at one with itself, 
i. e. being that is its own environment] which is 
not interrupted in its self-continuity by the infin- 
ite manifold of limits furnished by its varied 
feelings and sense-perceptions, volitions and 
thoughts" (pp. 205-208). 

(3) On the Kantian Antinomy of the infinite 
divisibility of time, space, and matter (pp. 208- 
220). 

(4) The common view, according to which dis- 
crete quantity and continuous quantity are con- 
sidered to be two different species of quantity 
(pp. 221-222). 

(5) The elementary operations of arithmetic. 
The Kantian synthesis a priori of sense-perception 
as exemplified (a) in the sum of 7+5=12, and 



248 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

(i) in the axiom that a straight line is the shortest 
distance between two points (pp. 226-233). 

(6) The use of numerical expressions for philo- 
sophical thoughts by Pythagoras ; the Trinity ; 
geometric figures — circle, triangle, etc., — as sym- 
bols of eternity or the Trinity, etc. Hegel shows 
the utter inadequacy of these symbols to express, 
as words can express, these high ideas — words, in 
short, can express and discriminate universal, par- 
ticular, and singular ideas, whereas the symbol 
must always confound the universal and particu- 
lar ; hence with the symbol there can be no sub- 
sumption and hence no expression of a logical 
train of thought. That which number expresses 
of a thought is only its externality (pj3. 236-242). 

(7) Examples of the identity of extensive and 
intensive quantities. With Hegel " identity " means 
necessary connection or inseparableness and not 
mere empty sameness. The examples of degree 
of heat shown by extension of column of mercury 
or expansion of air, etc. ; the intensity of soul 
shown by wide-reaching influence, etc. (pp. 248- 
250). 

(8) Kant's application of the category of degree 
or intensive quantity to the being of the soul. 
Kant had undermined the old proof of immortality 
which rested on showing that the soul lacked 
extensive quantity and hence could not perish 
through division or sundering of its parts. Hegel 
criticises Kant's reply that the argument is good 
only so far as the extensive, quantity of the soul is 
concerned, but it does not prove that the soul may 



QUANTITY. 249 

not perish through the gradual remission of its 
powers, losing thereby its intensive quantity (p. 
251). 

(9) On the high significance of the quantitative 
progress ad infinitum. It is used mostly in 
"tirades/' much admired for their supposed 
sublimity — "stars beyond stars, worlds beyond 
worlds, systems beyond systems, limitless periods 
of time, et cetera. The imagination takes this 
flight into the immeasurable distance where the 
farthest world has always one beyond it still far- 
ther/' Hegel remarks dryly that the continual 
setting up of a limit and then causing it to van- 
ish is tedious rather than sublime. He com- 
mends Kant's admiration of the sublimity of the 
moral freedom of the ego as preferable to the shal- 
low sense that stops before the sublimities of dis- 
tance in time and space (pp. 257-264). 

(10) On the Kantian antinomy of the limitation 
or unlimitedness of the world in time and space 
(pp. 264-269.) "The Kantian antinomies are ex- 
positions of the antithesis of the finite and the in- 
finite, in a concrete form applied to special sub- 
strates furnished by the imagination/' Hamilton's 
"law of the conditioned" w^ill occur to the reader 
of this statement by Hegel. It is a matter of the 
imagination ( Vorstellung— mental picture) and not 
of pure thought. There is no antinomy to the 
pure thinking. But Hamilton proves this "law of 
the conditioned," as he tells us, by "applying it" 
to space, time and other objects. Space is either 
finite or infinite. If we attempt to think it as 



250 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

finite we see at once that its environment demands 
space to exist in and therefore that its yery boun- 
daries posit space beyond it. Hence, instead of be- 
ing limited it can only be affirmed or continued by 
its limits. Space is infinite because it is its own 
other. But can we conceive the infinite ? Yes, 
certainly, Ave reply, we can think it as that which 
necessarily continues itself, and is of such a nature 
that it is its own boundaries. But Hamilton 
means by " conceive" to form a mental picture, and 
accordingly decides that we cannot conceive infi- 
nite space. To make a mental picture of a thing 
means to imagine it as limited in space. A picture 
must have a frame, or at least a border. Hamil- 
ton's antinomy is therefore the opposition of the 
imagination to pure thought and not the opposi- 
tion of pure thought to itself. Examined closely 
it disappears altogether. For the impossibility 
of picturing the infinite was to be expected. In- 
deed, had Hamilton found himself able to imagine 
the infinite there would have been a real contra- 
diction as will appear by the following considera- 
tion : The pure thinking affirms space to be in- 
finite, because any assumed boundaries are found 
to continue it ; but on the supposition that one 
finds that he can picture the infinite, he has found 
its final boundaries, or limits, and hence it must be 
finite. This would be a real antinomy, but the 
one given by Hamilton is not an antinomy, as will 
also appear. For thought sees first that space is 
infinite ; next the imagination tries to picture it 
but fails to do so because it cannot discover any real 



QUANTITY. 251 

or final limits ; hence the inference from the fail- 
ure of the attempt on the part of the imagination 
confirms the verdict of pure thought. Pure 
thought says space is infinite ; imagination says : 
"I cannot imagine it as finite." Surely this is 
no contradiction. 

The antinomies of Kant doubtless suggested 
both form and content of the law to Hamilton, 
though he claims the law as his greatest discovery. 
But Kant did not make the mistake of question- 
ing the infinitude of space. For he assumes its 
infinitude as one of the reasons for deciding it to 
be the a priori form of intuition (Ansoliauu7ig— 
sense-perception) . 

Nevertheless Kant undoubtedly falls into error, 
in this, his first antinomy of limitedness or un- 
limitedness of the world in time and space. To 
prove his thesis that the world has a beginning in 
time and is limited in space, he assumes the 
opposite to be true, and asserts that it is an in- 
conceivable alternative. " If the world had no 
beginning, then up to any given moment of 
time an infinite series of successive conditions of 
the things in the world would have elapsed. But 
the infinitude of a series consists in the fact that 
it can never be completed by a successive synthe- 
sis. Hence an infinite series of world-conditions 
cannot have elapsed, and hence a beginning of the 
world is the necessary condition of its existence." 

But it is clear that the difficulty regarding the 
" elapsed " or finished (verflossene) series and its 
"successive synthesis," is one that appertains to 



252 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

time itself primarily, and to the world only in so 
far as its existence is conditioned by time. Hence 
Kant, like Hamilton, should have made his proof 
deny the infinitude of time rather than that of the 
world. But he exj)ressly admits the infinitude of 
time, as conceivable and obvious, in his Transcen- 
dental ^Esthetic. And well he may, for time is 
of such a nature that any limit of it implies time 
to exist in. Any beginning implies a previous 
time. 

Kant might have said " Every given moment 
presupposes an infinite series of moments of time 
already elapsed. But an infinitude can never be 
completed by successive synthesis and hence an 
infinite time cannot hare elapsed or been fin- 
ished." Hegel remarks on this point : " We see 
that it was unnecessary for Kant to use the indi- 
rect proof for he already had assumed what he 
proposed to prove. Kamely, a given moment is 
assumed, -up to which time an eternity has elapsed, 
eternity having here the restricted sense of the 
abstract infinite (schleclit-unendlichen, i. e. the in- 
finite progress). A ' given moment' means noth- 
ing more nor less than a definite limit to time. In 
the proof therefore, a limit to time is actually pre- 
supposed, but this is the very thing that demands 
proof. For the thesis asserts that the world has a 
beginning in time. The assumed time-limit is a 
Kow, the end of the elapsed time and the beginning 
of the future time. But the K~ow as end of an 
infinite series of conditions of mundane affairs is a 
qualitative limit and not a quantitative limit. For 



QUANTITY. 253 

if it were taken for a quantitative limit which is 
receding and in its very nature a moving limit, 
then the infinite time has not elapsed or been fin- 
ished in this limit, and the proof breaks down." 
In other words the limit assumed in the now as a 
qualitative is not qualitative but a quantitative — a 
limit not in something else than time, but a limit 
in time itself, hence a limit of itself through itself 
which is a continuation of time rather than a qual- 
itative, or final limitation. Hence the indirect 
demonstration rests on an assumption which is not 
valid. 

The part of the thesis also which relates to 
space is proved by dragging in the idea of time. 
" The successive enumeration of the parts of an 
infinite world in space would require an infinite 
time which must be regarded as having elapsed, 
which is impossible. For this reason an infinite 
sum-total of actual things in the world cannot be 
thought. Hence the world is not infinite." This 
it is clear would refute in the same manner the 
infinitude of space which Kant assumes in the 
proof which he gives of its a priori nature, in The 
Transcendental ^Esthetic. 

Hegel, as we have seen, makes the idea of quan- 
tity spring out of the idea of qualitative infinitude. 
Quantity is therefore in its very nature an infinite 
series — infinitely divisible and infinitely continua- 
ble. Its limits, being quantitative, are continua- 
tions, and not such limitations as make what they 
limit to be finite. Space and time are therefore 
given by Hegel as examples of pure quantity 



254 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

(p. 266) they are such that any limits assumed in 
them are continuous with what they limit. 

The antithesis of this antinomy is proved by 
Kant through the principle that "In a void time 
the origination of a thing is impossible, because 
no part of any such time contains a distinctive 
condition of being \eine unterscheidende Beding- 
ung des Daseyns=& condition favorable to origi- 
nating being] in preference to that of non-being." 
A self -active being would not move itself to origi- 
nate something nor would any cause begin to act 
without some previous occasion inciting it to act. 

Hegel remarks that this indirect }3roof also 
assumes, without proving, the point to be demon- 
strated, "Namely, something beyond the existence 
of the world, to wit, a void time. It posits a limit 
and then proceeds to annul it. The world is a 
being, and the proof assumes that this originates 
in a previous condition of being. But the antithe- 
sis asserts that there is no absolute limit but only 
a preceding condition which is again conditioned, 
and this again, to infinity. Hence what the an- 
tithesis asserts is assumed in the proof. The void 
time moreover is assumed as something temporal 
and limited, and hence is a being." In other words 
Kant proves that the world has no beginning by 
asserting the necessity of a previous condition of 
being in order that the present condition may have 
arisen, and thus contradicts himself. 

"The thesis and antithesis and their proofs offer 
nothing, therefore, except contrary assertions to 
the effect that there is a limit but that the limit is 



QUANTITY. ■ 255 

annulled ; that the limit has a beyond to which 
it is related, but that when we pass beyond the 
limit we meet a new one which we can also pass 
beyond, hence the limits are not absolute." 

Kant's solution of this antinomy through the 
subjectivity of time and space, as forms of sense- 
perception, thereby removing the self-contradic- 
tion from the world and placing it in the ego, is 
pronounced by Hegel to be a too tender considera- 
tion of the interests of the world and an equal 
lack of consideration for the ego. " This so-called 
'world* contains the contradiction, but cannot 
sustain itself under it as the mind can, and there- 
fore it is exposed to change and decay." 

If we glance at this first antinomy once more 
we shall see that both thesis and antithesis rest 
on or presupposes the same thought, namely, 
the antithesis — as in the third antinomy regard- 
ing freedom and fate, both rest on the thesis. 
For if the world has a beginning it presupposes 
a definite previous condition in which it originated. 
But this definite previous condition is of the same 
finite and existent nature as the world and is 
therefore to be regarded as a continuation of the 
world's existence. Hence the world is infinite as 
the antithesis asserts. But the inability to com- 
plete a synthesis is an irrelevant affair and need 
not have been brought up here, as it has nothing 
to do with the case. That we cannot picture 
the totality of space and of time does not cast a 
doubt on their infinitude, but on the contrary 
it confirms our insight into the necessity of that 



256 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

infinitude. So, too, our inability to add up in 
"successive synthesis," the past conditions of the 
world's existence, does not cast a doubt on the 
infinitude of existence in time (for " world" as un- 
derstood by Kant, means "universe" and not the 
earth nor the solar system). We know that such 
synthesis is impossible precisely because we know 
the series of conditions to be infinite (pp. 264- 
269). 

(11) On the fundamental thought involved in 
the idea of the mathematical infinite (pp. 272- 
315). 

(12) On the object of the differential calculus 
as deduced from the application that is made of 
it (pp. 315-352). 

(13) Still other varieties of qualitative forms of 
quantity (pp. 352-366). 

(14) On the use of the ratio of powers (Potenz- 
verhaltniss) , symbolically as a philosophical term 
(pp. 378-382). 

In the three remarks relating to higher mathe- 
matics, occupying nearly one hundred pages of 
Volume I. of the Logic — one-fifth of the entire 
work — we see the outcome of Hegel's insight into 
quantity, We will take up this in the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY ELUCI- 
DATED. 

BEFOEE taking up the question of quantita- 
tive infinitude, involved in Hegel's explana- 
tion of the fundamental basis on which the higher 
analysis of mathematics rests, we must discuss 
first the relation of quantity to quality. 

We have seen that quantity is the union or 
"identity/" as Hegel calls it, of attraction and re- 
pulsion. Attraction is the predominance of the 
factor, or element (moment), of dependence or 
" ideality" — the subordination of the parts to the 
whole in such a manner that they lose their indi- 
viduality in the totality. Repulsion is the pre- 
dominance of the factor of independence, the 
" reflection-into-itself * of the whole in the parts 
which endows them with independence and exclu- 
siveness. Once for all, being and determinateness 
are united in the form of self-determination in the 
being-for-itself, and quantity is the first phase and 
consequently the shallowest phase of this, its self- 
determination. 

So to speak, quantity is self-determination with 
the self left out. For the self-determination of 
independent being {Fur-sicli-seyn) is the dupli- 
cation of self — a one which is a process of du- 

257 



258 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

plication or self-multiplication. Take the dead 
results of this self-determination and we have 
quantity. AYe have ones ; these are excluding 
and independent and yet not self -active ; they 
are anything but self-active. And yet without 
self -activity there could be no being-f or-itself and 
hence no oneness, and no repetition of oneness 
and no quantity. The category of quantity is an 
insight into the form of true being, but only a 
partial insight. It sees just what the category of 
quality failed to see. The insight of quality per- 
ceived the dependence and consequent "ideality" 
of the two elements or factors of determinateness. 
It announced that all determinateness is negation 
and that being also is negation : being is the self- 
relation of negation and determinateness is nega- 
tion taken apart from self-relation. Both deter- 
minateness and being are united in self-determin- 
ation*; which is being-f or-itself . 

The insight into quantity perceives, not the side 
of dependence and ideality, like quality, but the 
side of independence belonging to determinate- 
ness. In quality, being and determinateness 
were one, in quantity the determinateness and 
being are indifferent towards one another. De- 
terminateness has these two phases, quality, 
or identity with being, and quantity or non- 
identity with being. The idea of quality leads 
over into quantity through its "dialectic." Its 
dialectic is an exposition of its presuppositions. 
Quality presupposes self-determination and the 
immediate aspect of the determinateness of self- 



RELATION" OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 259 

determination is quantity. Quality is dependence 
and the positing of a higher unity through mutual 
dependence of somewhat and other. Somewhat 
and other are "ideal" because they have no inde- 
pendent individuality, but are found only as ab- 
sorbed in the totality. Salt dissolved in water is 
said to exist ideel (ideally) in the water. Its 
immediate existence in proper form has vanished. 
It has been absorbed or dissolved by the water. 
But it is reel (or real) in the saltish taste which it 
gives to the water. 

The higher unity in which somewhat and other 
are "ideal" is a self-determined unity. The inde- 
pendent explains itself and also what depends on 
it. 

The independence of the higher unity explains 
for us the " ideality" of its moments which causes 
their individuality to be absorbed or swallowed up, 
and it explains also how they came to be posited as 
seemingly independent. This is the important 
point for us here in getting an insight into quan- 
tity. The quantitative aspect is seen when we 
obtain an insight into the positing of the being of 
the separate moments. 

Independent being is not only a negative unity 
(negating and swallowing up its determinations 
and "moments"), but is also a repelling or cre- 
ative unity — positing determinations and moments 
and endowing them with a phase of independence. 
This is the phase of independent being (Fur-sich 
Seyn, or self-determined being) which develops 
quantity for us. Quantity is the exposition of the 



260 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

sheer independence of determinateness, while 
quality is the exposition of the sheer dependence 
of it. Both phases must be, because the primor- 
dial condition of all determinateness, namely self- 
determination, involves them both. 

Having seen the general relation of quality to 
quantity as the two necessary phases of self-deter- 
mination, we next inquire into the "dialectic/' by 
which the insight into one of these categories 
widens into the insight into the other one. 

Quality in its first phase seems to be immediate 
and independent, because it is one with being. 
But on examination, it is found to be not indepen- 
dent but to be through another. Its immediate- 
ness, as Hegel says, is its defect, for it (its imme- 
diate unity with its determinateness) necessitates 
mediation through another. This mediation 
through another interrupts its unity with being, 
and we come to see that such an immediate unity 
with being is a mere seeming, or deceptive show, 
which appertains to finitude and perishableness 
rather than to true being. Such mere seeming 
presupposes, however, true being which is one 
with its determinateness through self-mediation, 
that is, it presupposes being-for-itself, or indepen- 
dent being. In being-for-itself determinateness 
is one with being, but through self-mediation. 
Our insight has widened somewhat ; we now see 
that all determinateness must arise through self- 
determination, and that there can be no immediate 
determinateness except through self -mediation. 
Mediation-through-another is directly opposed to 



RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 261 

immediateness, but self -mediation is the union of 
mediation and immediateness, because it (a) is 
mediated, but (5) as it is mediated by itself it is 
not made dependent on another, and, moreover, 
as it is one with itself it " goes-together- with- 
itself" in this self-mediation and is immediate. 
This is the solution of all the problems of quality, 
especially of those that deal with finitude and 
infinitude. 

But, with this insight into self-determination, 
we see that our somewhat and other have been 
generated through self-determination and that 
they are endowed with a phase of independence, 
or being-f or-itself . In fact, their very evanescence 
presupposes their original creation by the inde- 
pendent being as repetitions of itself. We now 
take a broader view of these categories (somewhat 
and other) and see now each one to be a reflection- 
into-itself through its alterum or "other." Each 
is a self-determined unit. But each side of its 
self-determination is also a unit, and hence each 
unit is composed of units and is the infinite possi- 
bility of units. And all these units, since they 
are repetitions of the self, are one self. This idea 
is quantity, and our insight into quality has 
widened dialectically into quantity. 

We have a great deal more than quantity here ? 
Yes, certainly. Hegel has the fullness of the 
Absolute Idea (Idee) before him at all points in 
this Logic, or else he could not see any dialectic. 
For the dialectic is precisely the posited difference 
of the inferior categories from the Absolute Idea. 



262 hegel's logic. 

Each inferior category placed "under the form of 
eternity" (sub specie mternitatis) or, what is the 
same thing, under the form of the absolute, begins 
to exhibit its defects and to show what it presup- 
poses to make its own existence possible. Its pre- 
suppositions are its " dialectical evolution." It 
cannot be too often repeated in an exposition of 
Hegel's logic that all dialectical evolution is an 
ascent from the inadequate to the more adequate, 
from what is assumed and therefore contingent, 
towards what is presupposed as the necessary ground 
of all. Every category, as before mentioned, is 
capable of being viewed in three aspects — (a) of 
pure immediateness, the shallowest view possible ; 
for, in the shape of pure immediateness, every 
category is as empty as pure being ; (b) of media- 
tion through others — the phase of flnitude, dual- 
ism, and relativity, or dependence on others ; this is 
the view that reflection or the understanding takes 
of all categories ; (c) of self-mediation ; this is a 
speculative view (in the good sense of this word) 
as referring to the complete comprehension of the 
category in and through its presuppositions. So 
on this logic, Hegel treats every category accord- 
ing to these three points of view. Hence having 
arrived at the determinateness of self-determined 
being, the first aspect of it is taken up and this 
first aspect is quantity. Quantity implies same- 
ness of quality or "indifference" (GleichgilUigkeit) 
as Hegel calls it. We cannot count together a 
coal-hod and a piece of coal, they are neither two 
pieces of coal nor two coal-hods. In order to 



RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 263 

count them together as two, we must fall back to 
a common genus or species in which they are iden- 
tical. Thus the coal-hod and the lump of coal 
make two things, two pieces of matter, two house- 
hold supplies, etc. Genus and species imply 
originally identity in the productive process, and 
not merely an arbitrary act of classification for 
convenience of inventorying, yet there are subjec- 
tive classifications in abundance ; but these are 
secondary and derivative classes, founded on the 
tacit attribution of some productive process to the 
species named. The general name is attributed to 
the producing energy, or to the end and aim 
imposed upon the object by conscious mind. 
Hence efficient, or final, or formal causes, which 
are in their nature general, are named rather than 
the things produced by them. Take any general 
names — horse, tree, table, sand. The mind 
predicates each of these of the infinite variety 
of existences that may be subsumed under it — 
namely, the inexhaustible multitude of beings that 
pass for horses, the innumerable individual trees, 
the wide list of objects that may be adapted to use 
as tables, the different specimens and amounts of 
sand. The general term includes all indifferently, 
and yet it does not stand for a mere abstraction, 
as is commonly supposed. It names the generic 
process or energy manifested in the species horse 
or tree ; the adapting process and purpose which 
imposes on a natural object or combination of 
objects the use of a table ; the mechanical commin- 
uting process that divides quartz or other rock into 



264 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

small sand particles. For the mind looks behind 
the immediate object to its producing forces and 
gives general names to what is objectively generic 
as energy,, or as process, or as purpose and inten- 
tion. The old question of nominalism and real- 
ism finds in this its solution. 

To the thinker who looks upon immediate 
things as independent realities, nominalism is the 
only theory credible. To the thinker who recog- 
nizes all things as fleeting and doomed to change 
and decay, and who sees permanence only in the 
producing energies, processes and laws, realism is 
the only true theory. He sees that general terms 
correspond not to real things, but to the more real 
causes of things, either efficient, formal or final 
causes. For that which produces a thing and 
gives it its reality, is more real than the thing 
itself. To this we are to turn our attention in 
order to see the deeper meaning of the category 
of quantity. For the determinateness of quantity 
is impossible unless there is generic being. There 
must be repetition or self-reproduction in order 
that there may be extension. The same must be 
outside the same. 

This points to the primordial form of true being 
— the absolute idea. For self-knowing reason has 
the form of subject and object to itself, and hence 
the form of self outside of the self, as object. 
Quantity is the intuition of the blank form, so to 
speak, of personality — it is the self perfectly 
empty outside the self as perfectly empty. Space 
is the same concept except that the self is regarded 



KELATI0N OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 265 

as a point. Everywhere in space the point is out- 
side of every other point, but each point is unreal. 
Only the separation of points is real, the points 
themselves are unreal in space. Time regarded as 
a line is the same concept as space ; but regarded 
as it is, a self-repulsion of the point, we have the 
other phase of personality or of consciousness, 
namely, the identification of the object by the 
subject, the recognition of the self by the self, 
which completes any act of consciousness. Hence 
time and sioace are the first or most immediate 
objectifications of God — God in his most abstract 
phases and not as he is in himself but as he is 
thought by the Logos in beginning to think his 
own {%. e. the Logos's) derivation. It is a logical 
and not a chronological condition of derivation or 
begottenness, and its thinking by the Logos pro- 
duces the Processio (or nature). 

Quantity is the form of self-determination with- 
out the substance of it. Independence and equal- 
ity of being are assumed in the separate ones, and 
yet because of the identity or similarity all make 
one continuous whole. The independence gives 
discreteness, the equality and identity give contin- 
uity. The independence is conditioned on the act 
of self-repetition, but this necessitates equality and 
identity, and hence continuity is essentially in- 
volved with discreteness. The union of contin- 
uity and discreteness, in such a manner as has 
been shown, is number or determinate quantity. 
Every quantity is an aggregate of like parts — that 
is to say, it is a continuity of discrete units or 
ones. 



266 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

This is the deduct ion of the two moments of 
number or Quantum, namely of "sum" and "unity" 
(Anzalil and Einlieit). Every number is "sum" or 
manifold of units and it is likewise their "sum" or 
this manifold in the form of unity; seven, for 
example, is a manifold of seven independent, 
discrete ones, each equal to the other. It is at the 
same time the continuity of these and the unity 
of them which is as much a one as the constituent 
units. 

From the attempt to unite more explicitly these 
"moments," arise the different species of calcula- 
tion or reckoning as Hegel shows (pp. 227-235). 
Addition is the taking together of unlike units, 
the summation of unlike sums. "Anzalil" and 
"Einlieit" are not only different, but the con- 
stituent "'sums" are different, for we use addition 
to discover the unity of unlike sums. If the sums 
to be added are alike, we use multiplication. 6x7 
= 42. Here 6, the multiplier, is the "sum," and 
7 is the constituent unit, and 42 is the resulting 
unity. Subtraction and division are merely neg- 
ative operations, involving the reversal of addition 
and multiplication, but using the same processes. 
But involution or the raising of numbers to their 
powers is more interesting, because here sum and 
constituent unit become identical. The number 
is multiplied into itself to produce its power. 
Here we have quantity assuming the form of self- 
relation — its externality putting on the semblance 
of self-determination. This leads Hegel to fix his 
eyes on this phase of mathematical calculation, 



RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 267 

and to look there for the transition out of quantity 
into some higher category. It suggests to him also 
the clue to the methods of the higher mathemat- 
ical analysis. 

Sum and unity are the elements of number or 
limited quantity (Quantum). Hegel investigates 
the nature of the determinateness by which pure 
quantity becomes limited quantity. The fC limit " 
in the case of determinate being (Daseyn) is some- 
thing beyond or outside of the "somewhat ;" but 
in the limited quantity it is within the unity. One 
hundred is a limited quantity, and it is the one- 
hundredth unit that makes the limit. But any 
one or each one of the hundred units indifferently 
taken, is the hundredth and hence the limit. The 
unity contains the limit within it. The hun- 
dredth is not the limit outside of and opposed to 
the other ninety-nine. Nor is the sum opposed to 
the unity, but the unity consists of the manifold 
units. 

But the limiting one gives to the number a dis- 
tinction from another number — 100 is distin- 
guished from 101, 102, etc., or from 99, 98, etc. 
This seems to make the limited quantity depend- 
ent on an outside quantity for its determinateness, 
just as somewhat is determined by an " other." But 
such is not the case. Each number is indifferent 
to every other. Indifference is the essential char- 
acter of number ; externality is its peculiarity. 
Eelation to another is merely an accident and does 
not concern it. Moreover, since it is sum, it is a 
manifold of independent ones external to one an- 



268 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

other, and hence it is within itself absolute exter- 
nality. This, however, according to Hegel, in- 
volves a contradiction which will develop itself in 
the infinite progress. 

EXTENSIVE AND INTENSIVE QUANTITY. 

Extensive and intensive quantity are distinguished 
from one another through the limit. When the 
sum is the limit the quantity is extensive, the 
number conceived with an emphasis, so to speak, 
on the discreteness and exclusion of the constitu- 
ent ones. But the ones are equal and identical, 
and continuous, and the number as unity is simple 
and continuous. " The limit of the quantum 
which as extensive has its determinate distinction 
in the sum of discrete units, passes over into sim- 
ple determinateness. In this simple determina- 
tion the limit is intensive quantity, and the limit 
or determinateness which is identical with the 
quantum is now posited as simple — namely, as de- 
gree" (p. 244). 

'^The sum," he says, "is only a moment of 
number." The other "moment" is unity, and if 
this is taken as the "limit" there is no emphasis 
on the discrete units within, but the comparison 
must be made with other numbers outside. This 
gives intensive quantity. "Degree is quantity 
but not internally manifold, it is more or less but 
not a greater or smaller manifoldness. Multiplic- 
ity has passed over into simple determination, de- 
terminate being into being-for-itself . Its determi- 
nateness must be expressed through a number, but 



RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 269 

not as sum,, not as a manifold of units, but as a 
degree " (p. 244). 

" In number the quantum is posited in its per- 
fect determinateness ; but as intensive quantum it 
is posited in its being-for-itself, as it is in its ideal 
totality, or its innermost essential nature (nach 
seinem Begriff.)" " Degree does not have the 
externality within itself, like extensive quantity, 
but it has it outside it in another quantity, and 
relates to it as its own determinateness" (p. 245). 

Indifference and externality characterize quan- 
tity and especially number. But in degree this 
externality and indifference is excluded from in- 
tensive quantity and the externality is turned 
against itself and made self-nugatory. Hence, 
the externality of degree is a return to the inter- 
nality of quality. Degree is therefore determined 
by external quantities. 

To recapitulate : sum (or manifoldness of units 
—Anzalil) and unity (or oneness in which the dis- 
tinctness of the units is lost or ignored —Einheit) 
are the two "moments" of limited quantity or 
number. Of these, sum is the limit (Grenze) and 
the quantity is determinate through this : the 
sum at once furnishes the measure by which we 
compare one number with another and determine 
its value. But the limit is not, as it was in the 
case of quality, an external limit making the quan- 
tity dependent. The limit is internal, the multi- 
plicity is within, and each one of the units is the 
limit, taken indifferently. It is this which makes 
extensive quantity — each unit indifferent to and 



270 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

excluding the other so that externality is pro- 
duced. But on the side of the unity quite a dif- 
ferent and important consideration enters. For 
the excluding constituent units are after all iden- 
tical with one another and hence continuity pre- 
vails and the quantity is one homogeneous whole. 
With the units as "ideal" and their continuity 
emphasized the "limit" is not so much the sum as 
the unity, and since this gives no determinateness 
by itself, the limit is rather to be found in other 
quantities. This determinate quantity which is 
determinate through others is degree, or intensive 
quantity. 

Extensive quantity contains its own externality 
or the independence and exclusion of its constitu- 
ent units. Intensive quantity excludes its exter- 
nality and is itself external to its own externality, 
just as the category of "somewhat" excludes its 
otherness (Anderseyn.) But in quantity we have 
externality and independence as the basal idea. 
Hence, when quantity becomes related to external 
quantities, it contradicts its intrinsic externality — 
the external of the external is the internal, and we 
have taken up a qualitative element into quantity 
and thereby we have passed beyond and out of the 
category of quantity as such. 

THE KEY TO THIS DIALECTIC. 

This transition from extensive to intensive 
quantity, on the part of Hegel, will at first ap- 
pear to be based on "external reflection," or 
what is worse, a verbal quibble. To appeal to 



RELATION" OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 271 

examples of intensive quantity, such as heat 
and cold, and to point out that changes of de- 
gree are accompanied by changes in extensive 
quantity, as for example the length of the column 
of mercury in the thermometer, or again, the 
number of vibrations of air and the intensity of 
the tone produced, or the brighter the colors (the 
more intense), the greater the extent of distance 
through which they are visible — to appeal to such 
examples is a mere reminder of the existence of an 
apparent connection between extensive and inten- 
sive quantity. But the question remains : what 
are they in themselves ? How does extensive im- 
ply in itself, intensive quantity ? Hegel's answer, 
as we have seen, starts with the fortunate discov- 
ery of the distinction between sum and unity. As 
unities all numbers are alike and there is no differ- 
ence between them. But as sums they are indi- 
vidualized and distinguishable one from another. 
So far so good, we have the explanation of the 
differences of numbers. But this is not all. The 
difference in regard to extent is only the immedi- 
ate or first phase of quantitative difference. It 
relates to dead results and not to process or activ- 
ity by which the results originate. Consider sum 
as limit and the number gets its characterization 
only by and through this sum or manifoldnesg. 
But on observing that it is a manifold of constitu- 
ent units of which we have taken no account, we 
see that another limit is to be found in those units. 
The sum is the numerator, as it were, but the con- 
stituent units are the denominator. The numera- 



272 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

tor determines only one factor in the result, the 
denominator determines the other, and both are 
required to complete the determination. If sum 
as limit gives extensive quantity, the constituent 
unit by itself considered gives the other limit and 
we have degree or intensive quantity. For consid- 
ering the constituent unit we see that each con- 
stituent unit maintains itself in its independent 
cleterminateness by means of its internal manif old- 
ness — for each unit is a number just as much as 
the unity (Einheit) of the sum is a number. 
Each constituent unit is in fact a sum and unitj^, 
but with the " moment" of "suni" set aside and 
left out of sight. Each constituent unit is then 
already regarded as an intensive quantum. In 
comparing the numbers 6 and 7 we decide 7 to be 
larger than 6 only because we assume the constitu- 
ent units of each to be identical. But if such is 
not the case, if each of the 6 units is twice the size 
of the units composing the seven, then the real 
ratio of the quantities is as 12 to 7. Our con- 
clusion, therefore, is that all number and hence 
all determinate quantity is a ratio in which sum 
and constituent unit, the former (Anzahl) the 
manifoldness and extensive quantity, and the lat- 
ter the repeated unit in the form of intensive 
quantity, both contribute to the complete determi- 
nation of the quantity as found in their unity 
(Einheit.) 

AYehave arrived, therefore, at the idea of ratio 
as the real truth of quantity. One simple number 
must be placed in relation to another, the one as 



RELATION OF QUANTITY TO QUALITY. 273 

sum, the other as constituent unit, in order to 
fully express quantity. This gives quantitative 
ratio as the only adequate expression of deter- 
minate quantity. It at the same time gives us an 
insight into the progress of mathematics from sim- 
ple arithmetic through general arithmetic (algebra) 
to the higher analytics, or the calculus. The 
mathematician gradually comes to see that quan- 
titative ratio expresses the truth of all quantitative 
being. 

But is this the thought of Hegel ? If so, he has 
been unfortunately not explicit enough in his de- 
duction of intensive quantity and has not expressed 
his own insight so fully as to possess others of it. 
Eeading between the lines we can see that this 
must have been his insight — we shall, in fact, see 
indubitable evidence of it in reading his one hun- 
dred pages of "remarks" on the higher mathe- 
matics. But we look in vain for the adequate 
expression of the "dialectic" that should show us 
the defect of extensive quantity and the precise 
way in which it reveals its inadequacy by presup- 
posing intensive quantity. The difficulty perhaps 
lies in the fact that his brilliant suggestion of 
"sum and unity" does not go far enough. It does 
not discriminate between the constituent unit and 
the unity of the sum of all the constituent units. 
The including unity has its units and their num- 
ber or sum expressed explicitly, but the constitu- 
ent units are not determined by an explicit state- 
ment of their manifoldness — they are only stated to 
be identical, the one to another. But as thus 



274 hegel's logic. 

indeterminate the whole number is left as uncer- 
tain as the value of a fraction is uncertain when 
only its numerator is given. The constituent 
units must therefore be likewise explicitly deter- 
mined as sums in order to complete our quantita- 
tive determinateness. Hence the quantitative 
ratio is the final form of quantity. This we will 
discuss in the next chapter. 






CHAPTER XXIV. 

QUANTITATIVE RATIO AND THE HIGHER MATHE- 
MATICAL ANALYSIS. 

IN the "small logic," the logic of the ency- 
clopaedia, which is a compend of the large 
logic, Hegel sets forth a slightly different view of 
quantity, from the view given in the large logic 
of which we are treating. In that work (the 
small logic) the divisions are (a) pure quantity, 
under which are treated also discrete and contin- 
uous quantity ; (b) Quantum, or number ; (c) De- 
gree, under which are treated, also, extensive and 
intensive quantity, the quantitative infinite pro- 
gression or series, and the quantitative ratio. In 
the large logic we have, first, pure quantity with 
the difference between continuous and discrete 
quanta and their mutual limitation whence arise 
determinate quanta. This is substantially the 
same as the first division in the small logic. In 
the second division we have quantum, under which 
falls the discussion of number, extensive and in- 
tensive quanta with degree and the quantitative in- 
finite progress or series. This includes all that is 
found in the second and third divisions of the 
small logic except quantitative ratio. The third 
division is the quantitative infinite progression 
which forms a sub-topic under degree in the 

275 



276 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

small logic. This difference does not, however, 
amount to much, if we consider that the important 
thought is the development of the two categories 
of extensive quantity and degree or intensive 
quantity as the two essential moments of quantity 
in its ideal totality {Begriff) or complete defini- 
tion. For intensive quantity presents one neces- 
sary phase of every number, and of every definite 
quantity, and extensive quantity presents the 
other necessary phase of the same. The real ex- 
plicit expression of quantity in its totality is quan- 
titative ratio, however, and not degree. There- 
fore the division given in the large logic may be 
preferred, on the whole. The second term should 
develop the elements of difference and limit, the 
elements of finitude, in short. The third term 
should unite these in a higher unity. Extensive 
and intensive quantity are opposed and limiting 
elements and hence intensive quantity or degree 
belongs to the second division, and in the large 
logic is properly placed. 

Eecalling the discussions of the last chapter : we 
found number to have three moments or phases : 
(a) constituent units, (b) the sum of these units, (c) 
the including unity whose measure or limit is the 
sum. But investigation discovered that the sum 
is not the only limit which determines the value of 
the quantity, but the constituent unit is also 
another limit, and that it takes both of these limits 
in combination to determine the value of the in- 
cluding unity. 

The sum gives the number of the units, the 



QUANTITATIVE RATIO. 277 

magnitude of the unit gives the intensity or the 
degree. The unit, not viewed as a manifold, but 
as mere unit, is an intensive magnitude whose 
measure is found in other quanta. Its extension 
lies outside itself. But if w r e take the including 
totality containing intensive quantity and its meas- 
ure, then this extension is posited w r ithin it, and 
we have quantitative ratio and not mere "degree." 
Recalling the nature of the one of being-for-itself, 
it becomes evident that the constituent units whose 
internal multiplicity is not expressed, or even sug- 
gested are somewhat of the nature of qualita- 
tive ones or independent beings, such as we had in 
the "one and many." This is our intensive being 
or degree. We have the qualitative one with the 
additional idea barely sufficient to make it quanti- 
tative as well as qualitative — namely, the additional 
idea of a dependence on external quanta in order 
to define its own quantity. This gives us occasion 
to inquire — if w r e could go into the question here 
— whether Hegel would not have been justified 
had he adopted a different arrangement of topics 
in his discussion of quantity, namely : After be- 
ing-for-itself with sub-topic of one and many, 
there should come quantity with its first sub-topic, 
intensive quantity or degree, as the transition from 
being-for-itself to extensive quantity. However 
this may be — whether degree is the first or second 
— there can be no doubt that quantitative ratio is 
the highest sub-category of quantity. Under this 
sub-category Hegel might have placed his notes on 
the quantitative infinitude and the higher mathe- 



278 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

matical analysis because lie solves the problems 
of these spheres by the use of the idea of ratio. 

In his remark on the pure elements (Begriffs- 
bestimmfheit) of the mathematical infinite (pp. 
272-315),, he points out that the mathematical in- 
finite is important because it uses the idea of the 
true infinite and therefore stands higher in this 
respect than the so-called metaphysical infinite. 
The latter namely opposes the infinite to the 
finite as a mere negative of the latter and thereby 
makes two finites, the former the void of the latter. 
Whereas the mathematical infinite expresses self- 
relation as its true form. 

The so-called maxima and minima involve the 
contradiction that they are quantities and yet can- 
not be increased or diminished, for ee quantity is 
that which can be increased or diminished." This 
subverts the ordinary definition of the quantitative 
infinitude — as "that beyond which there can be 
none greater." The fraction f when reduced to a 
decimal is .285714 as a repetend or infinite pro- 
gress. But as a ratio of 2 to 7 it is already com- 
pletely expressed. It becomes an infinite progress 
only when an attempt is made to express it by a 
simple number. In f the numerator and denomi- 
nator have no longer immediate value ; we may 
change 2 to 4. or 6. or 8, or to any other number 
whatever. But we must change 7 to a correspond- 
ing number so as to keep the value of the fraction 
always the same — T 4 T ,, ? 6 T , -£$, etc. The numbers by 
which we represent the sides of a ratio are indiffer- 
ent provided the quotient remains the same. In 






QUANTITATIVE RATIO. 279 

the case of differentials, in which the sides of the 
ratio are represented as infinitely small quantities, 
the value of the terms or sides of the ratio has van- 
ished and we have left the simple ratios dx divided 
by dy. 

Hegel discusses at length the theory of the cal- 
culus of functions from this point of view, passing 
in review Newton's theory and comparing it with 
Carnot's, Lagrange's, and Eulers. He sides with 
Lagrange against Newton in one point. 

In his second remark (pp. 315-352) he tries to 
show "the purpose of the differential calculus in- 
ferred from its application. - " Here he prefers La- 
grange to Xewton again. 

In his third remark (pp. 352-366) he takes up 
other examples of qualitative magnitudes : the re- 
lation of the point, the line, the surface, and the 
solid to one another ; the measurement of the cir- 
cle, etc. 

Under quantitative ratio (das quantitative Vef- 
Mltniss) he treats first (a) the direct ratio in which 
quality is only a remote implication ; this is the or- 
dinary ratio in which an increase or decrease of 
one term implies a similar increase or decrease of 
the other term ; (b) the inverse ratio, wherein a 
change in one term involves the opposite change in 
the other ; (c) the ratio of powers (Potenzverhalt- 
n iss) in which there is self-relation in such a man- 
ner that the same number is sum and unity. The 
square of 6 is 6x6 in which 6 is both sum and 
unity. In the ratio of powers, quantity returns to 
quality in such a way as to form a new category — 



280 HEGEL S LOGIC. 

measure (das Maass). In order to grasp this cate- 
gory one must see quantity in all its phases as im- 
plying or presupposing self -relation. Underneath 
its externality and indifference there must be seen 
self-determination involving a qualitative side or 
phase as the object and end of the mechanical ex- 
ternality of the quantitative in such a manner that 
the change of quantity is also a change of quality,, 
or in other words that a change of the determi- 
nateness which is indifferent to being, involves a 
change in the determinateness that is identical 
with being. The interrelation of the categories of 
extensive quantity and degree, and their alterna- 
tion in the quantitative infinitude, and also their 
adequate expression in the quantitative ratio, 
bring to the surface the deep-buried presupposi- 
tion of quantity — but only partially. Measure is a 
further and more adequate exposition of this pre- 
supposition, but the doctrine of essence and idea 
(Begriff) contains its full exposition. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

MEASUKE (DAS MAASS.) 

MEASURE is the union of quantity and 
quality in such a manner that the in- 
crease or decrease of quantity changes the qual- 
ity or immediate being. There are two self-re- 
lations : first, the self -relation of quality which 
gives rise to indifference and externality and 
thereby produces quantity. . The second self- 
relation is that of externality to externality : 
" As relation to itself it is at the same time can- 
celled externality and has developed a distinc- 
tion from itself, namely : as externality, it is still 
quantitative, but as self-relation of externality it 
has acquired also a qualitative moment" (p. 
383). 

Measure, or the essential limit which quantity 
develops to itself, has three phases, described by 
Hegel as follows : 

(a) " A determinate quantity (Quantum) which 
has a qualitative significance and is a measure. 
Its course of evolution unfolds the difference of its 
moments, and discriminates its qualitative and 
quantitative characteristics. These moments are 
further defined in the totality of measure and be- 
come to a degree independent of one another in it. 
But since they are essentially related their unity 

281 



282 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

appears in the following phase,, [which is the sec- 
ond phase of measure] : 

(b) "The ratio of specific quantas as independ- 
ent measures (Maassen). Their independence 
however, rests essentially on their quantitative ratio 
and difference in magnitude ; hence their inde- 
pendence is a transition from one to the other. 
Measure, with this, passes over into the measure- 

;>#^less and is lost altogether. This transcendence of 
measure is however only the negative phase which 
is implicit in it and hence it is only the indiffer- 
ence of measure [which is the third phase of the 
category of measure]. 

(c) " The indifference of the moments of the 
category of measure posited with the negativity 
contained within it becomes the inverse ratio of 
measures and the sides of this ratio as independent 
qualities depend essentially on their quantity and 
also on their negative relation to one another; and 
with this they prove themselves to be only the 
moments of a truly independent unity which is 
their reflection-into-self and the explicit realiza- 
tion of it, namely the category of essence." 

Three chapters are devoted to this subject, the 
contents of which are respectively as follows : 

Chapter I. Specific quantity. 

A. Specific quantum. 

B. Specifying measure. 

a. The rule. 

b. Specifying measure. 

Remark giving an illustration. 



MEASUKE. 283 

c. Batio of the two sides as qualities. 

Eemark giving an illustration in the law 
of motion. 
C. The being-for-itself of measure. 

Chapter II. The real measure. 

A. The ratio of independent measures. 

a. The combination of two measures. 

b. Measure as a series of measure-ratios. 

c. Elective affinity. 

Eemark: Berthollet on elective affinity 
and Berzelius on the same subject. 

B. Knotted-line of measure-ratios. 

Eemark : examples of such knotted 
lines : " There is no leap (lacuna) in 
nature. " 

C. The measureless. 

Chapter III. The transition to essence. 

A. The absolute indifference. 

B. Indifference as inverse ratio of its factors. 

Eemark on centripetal and centrifugal 
forces. 

C. Transition into essence. 

The treatment of the above topics occupies only 
seventy pages of the large logic. This amounts 
to about two-elevenths of the space devoted to 
the doctrine of being. In the smaller logic only 
one-eleventh is devoted to it. Whether Hegel 
had come to think that much of the matter in- 
troduced at first under this topic belongs prop- 
erly to a philosophy of nature and not to the 
logic of pure thought may be a question. But 



284 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

it is clear that quantity when profoundly inves- 
tigated shows its true nature as ratio — as exter- 
nality related to externality and hence as return to 
internality ; or in other words, indifference of re- 
lation — being and determinateness indifferent to 
one another- — becomes annulled and thus becomes 
dependence and hence qualitative identity of being 
and determinateness reappears. The qualitative 
determinateness, however, is mediated through 
quantity, and is not that sort of quality which we 
have already seen passing over into quantity. 

We are in search in this logic of a category suffi- 
ciently comprehensive to hold truth ; a category 
which can be made universal and all-inclusive 
without self-contradiction. This search results for 
us in annulling or cancelling the inadequate cate- 
gories. We have no more use for them after they 
have shown themselves to be mere phases of larger 
processes of self-determination. Taken by them- 
selves they are untrue ; if we use them as lenses 
through which to see the truth, we distort it ; if 
we attempt to think the absolute by their aid, we 
obscure it. 

This logic ascends and draws up the ladder after 
it. Plato likewise in the passage quoted from 
The Republic (VII., 14) as the motto of this volume 
where he describes the dialectic method, mentions 
this important characteristic that it annuls the 
categories with which it sets out — the "hypothe- 
ses," as he calls them — and proceeds onward 
towards the first principle. 

The logic does not lay down a first principle and 






MEASURE. 285 

proceed to build on it. Pure being is not the basas 
of Hegel's system. The basis or first principle is 
found at the end of the logic and is the absolute 
Idea or God. Pure being is the first one of a long 
series of categories that are exploded and cast 
away as insufficient for the expression of first 
principles. 

" But do we not find in nature applications of 
these 'inadequate' categories as you call them? 
Do we not find examples of measure, of elective 
affinity — of ratios of extension to intensity, and a 
series of measures, etc. ?" Yes, precisely. Because 
nature is itself a " processio" or a process of deri- 
vation beginning with chaos, or the utterly inade- 
quate, and ascending to human history which goes 
on extending into the heaven of the " Invisible 
Church "whose spirit is the Holy Spirit — nature 
for this reason does furnish illustration of inade- 
quate categories. But, note well, these inadequate 
categories as shown up in this logic by the dialectic, 
do not any one of them express so well what they 
are intended to express as the categories into which 
they pass over dialectically. There is nothing in 
quality which is not better expressed in quantity 
and measure and essence and idea ; nothing in 
quantity which is not more fully expressed in 
measure, essence and idea; and nothing in measure 
that is not more profoundly understood in the 
categories of essence and idea. When we look upon 
one of the lower categories from the standpoint 
of a higher one we see it as a mere phase. We 
add to it in thought what it lacks in its definition 



286 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

and see it with its implications. We consequently 
see it in its truth. So in the philosophy of nature 
the lower categories seem at first to haye independ- 
ent application and truth. But on investigation 
we discover that they are conditioned by negative 
processes which essentially limit them. On mak- 
ing our synthesis and ascending to the new r cate- 
gory expressing relatively the entire process which 
the lower category expressed only partially,, we 
now see the former object far more accurately. 

On arriving at measure we have a unity of qual- 
ity and quantity. All the determinations of qual- 
ity here have a new explanation as based on quan- 
titative ratios. So all the categories of measure 
will have higher explanations in the categories of 
essence and perfectly adequate ones in the cate- 
gories of the absolute idea. 

In our day we have seen a great naturalist, Dar- 
win, revolutionize all sciences that deal with or- 
ganic nature. The idea of life and its struggle to 
attain its aims — the struggle for survival — is intro- 
duced to explain the present peculiarities of plants 
and animals. Everything is to be explained by its 
history. Its history will reveal its jnirpose or 
self-aim for which it has been and is now strug- 
gling. 

This very high category (life is a sub-category of 
the absolute idea) is gradually transforming scien- 
tific method. All nature is being inventoried 
anew in order to see it all from the standpoint of 
life. Everywhere the appearance of development 
through purpose or aim is sought. All variations 



MEASUEE. 287 

of species, even the species themselves, have become 
what they are through the struggle of life against 
its environment. The old view tried to explain 
everything by environment (the " other " of the 
'"somewhat"). In the environment was to be 
found all the activity and in the plant or animal 
all the passivity. The Darwinian view has turned 
this method around, and now it is not the action 
of the environment so much as the reaction of the 
plant or animal against its environment which in- 
terests us. The living being is a self-active energy 
persisting under various environments and mani- 
festing his power by modifying his environment 
and by modifying also his own organism to accom- 
plish his work better. Every new step that he 
makes is transmitted to his progeny as so much in- 
herited power. He builds himself in the process 
of modifying his environment and adapting it to 
himself. 

It is true that the consequences of this Darwin- 
ian view are only partially apprehended by scienti- 
fic students and for the most part we find men who 
are at work on the new line to discover develop- 
ment through self- activity, yet entirely uncon- 
scious of the significance of their new category as 
regards its refutation of the old category of mech- 
anism. They still seem to think that mechanism 
is valid. They hold, for instance, with Herbert 
Spencer that there is no such thing as freedom 
possible. They hold the materialistic theory quite 
generally. Whereas if they took the new theory 
in its general aspects they would see that a uni- 



288 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 



verse in which evolution is the principle, is con- 
stantly proving the instability of matter and the 
substantiality of self-activity and mind. That 
abides which has power to adapt its environment 
to its own uses and which adapts itself to its en- 
vironment. That abides which has most mind. 
Not matter, but mind is the substantial, says the 
evolution theory. Matter is only unstable and par- 
tial realization of what when fully realized is mind, 
or living, conscious energy. 

In the quantitative ratio, each side is a limited 
quantity, but the ratio itself has qualitative as- 
pects. This gives us the category of measure. 
But the sides of this ratio which produces measure 
become themselves measures when considered as 
factors of measure. The ladder to this is given in 
three steps of specification of quantity and meas- 
ure. First it is a ratio of quantities that produce 
measure, or quality dependent on a quantity. 
Then, secondly, the limitation of the quantity is 
measured by an external standard, the quality is 
determined by rule — so much quantity produces 
such and such a quality, etc. — Bessemer steel is 
produced when the quantity of carbon has been 
diminished to a definite amount. But these quan- 
tities which are externally united in the rule (Re- 
gel) are each of them measures, and hence meas- 
ure is a ratio of two measures and we have being- 
for-itself in measure (Fur-sich-seyn im Maasse). 

Hegel remarks that the mathematics of nature is 
necessarily a science of measures, a science for 
which much material has been collected, but 




MEASURE. 289 

which has received little scientific or philosophic 
treatment as yet. He thinks that the mathemati- 
cal principles of "the philosophy of nature" should 
receive a quite different handling from that which 
they receive in Newton's work under that title and, 
indeed, different from that which they are likely to 
get from the Baconian style of investigation (p. 
401). "It is a great service to science to inven- 
tory the empirical mathematical elements of na- 
ture and discover the numerical ratios that exist, 
the distances of the planets, their periods of revo- 
lution, etc., but it is infinitely a greater service to 
cause these empirical data to disappear, and in 
their places to show the universal form of the 
quantitative elements involved elevated into the 
shape of laws or measures. It is an immortal ser- 
vice that Galileo performed in determining the law 
of falling bodies, and that Keppler performed in 
determining the law of planetary revolution. 
They have proved these laws by showing their cor- 
respondence to the actual phenomena. But there 
is a higher proof still demanded ; namely, a deduc- 
tion of the quantitative elements from the qualities 
or real beings which are involved — for example 
from the constitution of time and space them- 
selves." 

He thinks that Newton's discovery of the law of 
gravity was merely a piece of dexterous manipula- 
tion of the formula of Keppler who had stated the 
law of planetary revolution to be a ratio of the 
cube of distance passed over to the square of time 
elapsed. Newton, according to Hegel, simply sepa- 



290 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 






rated this formula into two factors, one of which is 
the space passed over divided by the square of the 
time elapsed and this is the law of falling bodies. 
To get the Kepplerian law multiply this formula 
by the square of the space passed over, which is 
the omitted factor (p. 402). 

In the being-f or-itself of measure we have a ratio 
of measures, each side of the ratio being a measure. 
This brings us to real measure such as constitutes 
the intimate nature of space and time as well as 
the specific gravity of bodies, the chemical proper- 
ties, the musical tones, etc. 

But each measure as the side of a ratio becomes 
also in itself a ratio of measures and there develops 
a series of measures (eine Reihe von Maassen) in 
which Hegel thinks that he identifies the principle 
that explains affinity and elective affinity. (i This 
indifferent manifold ratio becomes excluding being- 
f or-itself, which is the so-called elective affinity." 

The knotted-line of measure-ratios is a scale of 
changing ratios which move by degrees through 
the compass of one quality and suddenly pass over 
to a new quality at one leap. Water is liquid up 
to a certain degree of temperature though chang- 
ing its capacity of solubility, but at 212° F. it sud- 
denly becomes vapor ; or at 32° it becomes solid. 
Birth and death are such a qualitative spring 
{Sprung). Hence nature has breaks in its con- 
tinuity contrary to the old adage that denies this. 

The excluding measure, therefore, develops for 
us the discontinuity of quality, and hence the ne- 
gation of measure itself. This makes appear again 



MEASURE. 291 

an absolute indifference of quantity to quality and 
we have arrived at a new and much deeper cate- 
gory — that of essence ( Wesen). 

The "indifference" here spoken of means the 
independence of quality as regards quantity. Its 
reappearance as a result of quantitative ratio 
and the category of measure seemed at first to 
ground quality entirely and finally on quantity. 
But the appearance of elective affinity and a 
knotted-line of changing quantity which results in 
a series of different qualities shows us that the 
connecting link between quantity and quality is 
deeper than measure. Measure is accordingly an- 
nulled as a supreme category. But with the an- 
nulment of measure we have arrived at the final 
annulment of all the possible categories of imme- 
diateness, and we must look for the true real in an 
essence which never fully reveals itself as quality or 
quantity, or measure. 

It must be noted in what way the knotted-line 
of different qualities annuls measure. Quantity, 
it has been noticed, is possible only where the 
quality remains identical — we have seen that there 
can be no counting together of things except in the 
same class. But in quantitative ratio and still 
more in measure, quality makes its appearance 
again, and in the ratio of measures the qualities 
become dependent on each other . through the un- 
derlying quantitative ratio. But in the knotted- 
line of measure ratios, the qualities become a 
series of different qualities and hence the quantita- 
tive measure has also to break down. Where the 



292 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

quality breaks there can be no continuous measure 
of degrees of quality, . of course. Hence the 
quantitative measure has to begin anew at the 
point where a new quality begins. Hence measure 
itself breaks down here and we have the category 
of the measureless (das Maasslose) (p. 436). 
Hence too we have arrived at the ^absolute indif- 
ference" (p. 439) which is the becoming of, or 
transition into essence. 

To the question that will have occurred to the 
reader, how it is that Hegel shows the internal 
necessity of the leap (Sprung) from one quality to 
another? The answer must call attention to the 
dialectical requirement for each side of an antithe- 
sis to develop on itself its other. When we find 
that any category presupposes another in order to 
make it possible as a thought or as a reality, we 
add that other category to it as a necessary part of 
it. Each side of the quantitative ratio becomes 
also a ratio and thus gives rise to measure. Each 
moment of measure being a ratio, itself develojos 
into a measure and we consequently have a ratio of 
measures. But each measure is also a quality and 
at first the quality was a resultant of the ratio of 
two quantities ; but in the ratio of measures we 
have now arrived at a ratio of two qualities and at 
this point our measure begins to break down with- 
in itself. 

THE EXTIRE DIALECTIC OF BEIKG — A RESUME. 

The rule of the dialectic is that what develops 
in the whole and as a whole, develops next in the 



MEASURE. 293 

moments, each one of which becomes a totality, 
and thereby we have arrived at a new category. 
For example "beginning and ceasing, as two mo- 
ments of the becoming, have arisen from the syn- 
thesis of the first two moments, being and naught. 
Next beginning and ceasing each absorb the other, 
and this "paralyzes" (p. 103) the becoming, and 
brings us to " Daseyn." In this new category the 
two moments are reality and negation, but each 
one proceeds to evolve its other out of itself and 
the result is somezuhat and other. Each of these 
moments of finitude evolves the other and we have 
infinitude. For when the somewhat is its own 
other we have the infinite. But this makes each 
moment a totality or a one, a unity, and we have 
being-for-itself. But each of the moments be- 
comes a being-for-itself, and we have indifference 
of units each one of which is a multiple in itself 
and we leave the category of quality and arrive at 
quantity. The indifference of one unit to another 
and at the same time its perfect identity with an- 
other develop continuity and discreteness and this 
gives the sub-category of determinate quantity or 
number where each moment has evolved its other 
so that continuity is inwardly composed of discrete 
units and discrete units are in continuity. The 
two moments thus become unity and sum, in the 
former the continuity, and in the latter the dis- 
creteness being accented. But this develops exten- 
sive and intensive quantity when each moment has 
become both sum and unity. Again each moment 
evolving its other gives quantitative ratio as the 






294 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

truth in which extensive and intensive quantity 
are united. Now arises quality as the product of 
this ratio and the new category of measure emer- 
ges from quantity which, has lost its indifference, 
and being and determinateness have once more 
become one. But in measure the two sides of the 
ratio have become two ratios as shown above and 
they next become two measures, and two qualities 
in relation result. The moments also develop each 
into different qualities and the quantitative thread 
that has furnished the limit or measure is now 
broken and loses all continuity. With this, meas- 
ure itself has vanished, and all ratio and connec- 
tion, and we have the measureless. The indiffer- 
ence of all immediateness that has come about is 
essence — a self -relation indifferent to quality and 
quantity and measure — indifferent to all that is 
immediate and positive. It is a negative self-rela- 
tion which needs no longer any elements that re- 
tain a " reality" to sustain it, but it produces on 
itself these elements of "reality" as the result of 
its negative self -relation. In other words our re- 
sult is that being is not the basis of reality, but 
the basis of reality is negative self-relation. This 
self-relation produces all the forms and shapes of 
being. We shall find such a negative self -relation 
recognized and named in the following book : 
(Ztveites Buck — Das Wesen) under such categories 
as force, cause, etc. — ideas of a self- active energy 
which produces a manifestation of itself. All 
reality (or immediateness) is viewed as a product 
of the activity of such energy. The real is not 



MEASURE. 295 

regarded as a final reality nor composed of ulti- 
mate realities. Matter is not a final reality, nor is 
it composed of atoms which are such final realities, 
but it is a show or manifestation — an appearance 
of force and energy which causes it. Not atoms, 
but energy is the ultimate reality. We must 
learn "to think an activity without a substrate" 
if we would think essence — this is what Schelling 
pronounces the first qualification of a philosopher. 
We must learn to think tilings as constituted out 
of forces rather than forces as constituted out of 
things. The first stage of thinking tries to explain 
forces as very fine and subtile species of matter — 
caloric fluids, or electricity, or a refined ether, etc. 
But this trick of the crude undeveloped thinking 
which deals with images, is seen now to be only a 
trick ; it amounts to explaining visible things by 
smaller invisible things of the same kind — by 
atoms and molecules. Such explanation does not 
explain, but leaves things where it found them, 
because a small thing is no more intelligible than 
a large thing. But the idea of force, or energy is 
something radically different from the idea of 
things. The dynamic contains the static as a 
subordinate element or "moment" of it. The 
static can be explained through the dynamic, but 
not the latter through the former. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ESSENCE. 

ESSENCE is the second of the three great 
categories of Pure Thought — Being, Essence 
and Idea. 

Being is the category of immediateness, Es- 
sence that of pure and utter mediation, while 
Idea is the category of self-mediation or living 
energy, Absolute Mind or Personality. 

Being includes all sub-categories which involve 
the element of direct existence — -a real somewhat 
— as the basis. When we think a reality as unan- 
alyzable into forces or energies but as composed of 
atoms or material substances we are using the cat- 
egory of being as an ultimate or absolutely final 
category. Being is a category that is supposed to 
hold truth in that case. 

But when we rise to the thought of universal 
relativity and say that there is no existence possi- 
ble which is not entirely and throughout relative 
or dependent, we have arrived at the thought of 
essence. But we must note what such universal 
relativity implies. It implies that the dependent 
somewhat does not depend on another somewhat, 
for all other somewhats are also dependent or rela- 
tive, and cannot support one another. If we saw 
simply dependence on another somewhat we should 



ESSENCE. 297 

have only that partial insight into relativity which 
gives us the category of determinate being, of fini- 
tude. We have entire relativity here, and hence 
we have dependence not on being but on negation, 
or in other words, dependence on a process or 
activity. To be relative signifies to be negative. 
Eelativity implies negation of being-in-itself . This 
relative somewhat is nothing in itself but what it 
is wholly through another ; it is self -nugatory. 
But when we have universal relativity, we have 
universal negativity, and there is no longer any 
immediate reality as an ultimate basis on which 
our relation rests. If we can think of relation as 
existing only between two termini, each of which 
is an ultimate reality, we cannot think of essence 
or of relativity between existences which are them- 
selves all relative. We cannot think of beings as 
phenomenal if we think them as containing indis- 
soluble substrates of reality — real atoms for ex- 
ample, or material elements. 

The category of phenomenon implies the arrival 
of the mind at the insight into universal relativity. 
For when one sees that not only are some things 
dependent on others, but that all things are in 
their very nature dependent on their environments 
and that their environments are likewise made up 
of relative and dependent things so that the ter- 
mini of relation are in themselves relative and not 
final realities — when one sees this he sees that all 
seeming realities are phenomena or appearances or 
manifestations of hidden processes of force or en- 
ergy. Force or energy now seems to be the source 



298 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

of reality. Atoms or hard particles of matter do 
not any longer seem to be the ultimate reality but 
only the result or manifestation of force or energy. 
But there is a third and higher category await- 
ing us. the category of Idea. When we see all 
force or energy to be necessarily self-determina- 
tion in the form of life and mind, and see clearly 
that life and mind are primordial and not mere 
products of matter, we have arrived at this third 
great stage of thinking — that which uses the cate- 
gory of idea. It is the insight which Hegel must 
have reached before he wrote one line of his Logic 
or even one line of his Phenomenology. For in the 
latter work, the Phenomenology, he considers all 
objects of consciousness with a view to their j)ossi- 
ble acceptance as ultimate or final realities, and 
comes by degrees to the conclusion that self-con- 
scious being is the only ultimate or final reality. 
He canvasses all nature and all human history for 
objects, and in theology discovers the ultimate 
doctrines that have summed up the insights of the 
race in regard to this ultimate or final reality. 
Fetichism, which looks upon an immediate thing 
as final reality, is the lowest or most immediate — 
least developed stage of thinking. It uses the 
category of being. But its contradiction lies in 
the fact that it makes all things except the fetich 
mere dependent beings or phenomena and not 
self-existences. Hence, too, it must partially be 
aware that the reality of the fetich (the reality of 
the reality, as it were) is something not immediate 
but an essence that manifests itself (or masque- 



ESSENCE. 299 

rades) in the various immediate existences of the 
world. The "religions of substance/' as Hegel 
calls them, are religions which are conscious of 
this elevation above sensuous reality to a higher 
and more abstract reality, the reality of force or 
energy. The Brahm is pure being devoid of all 
attributes of existence, the same identity in all 
phenomena. This is also the category of essence. 
But why then have I in the same breath called this 
category "pure being" if it is the same as essence ? 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ESSENCE AND PURE 

BEING. 

Pure being is the abstraction from all attributes 
of whatever kind — utterly devoid of determina- 
tions; hence, of course, avoid of all determinations 
of sensuous reality. But it is more than this, it is 
not a reference to such sensuous determinations 
and is a negation of such reference express or im- 
plicit. It is therefore not only a void of such 
sensuous determinations, but also (nota bene) a 
void of any determinations which posit or negate 
such sensuous determinations. Essence is, like 
pure being, also a void of the determinations of 
sensuous reality — so far as they are concerned it is 
the pure naught. But essence has an express rela- 
tion to these determinations as their cause or crea- 
tor, and their destroyer or the cause of their 
change and evanescence. Essence is thus, so to 
speak, responsible for what passes for reality in 
finite things — it is in fact its reality which they 
manifest ; for they are phenomena or appearances 



: 



300 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

of its (essence's) energy. So things are but mani- 
festations of the reality of forces — this is the doc- 
trine of the correlation of forces. The force is the 
true reality — more real than the things in which 
it manifests itself because the things manifest only 
one of the two phases of its reality, (a) It is rea 
as positing them and this reality the things affirm 
by their reality ; {i) it (the force) is real as negat- 
ing them and this the things show by changing or 
perishing and giving place to other things. Es- 
sence is a twofold reality therefore manifesting 
itself in the origination and evanescence of all 
things. 

But the Indian Brahma may be regarded as the 
simple negation of all things,, in which aspect it 
may be called either essence or pure being indiffer- 
ently. Or,, secondly,, it may be regarded as the 
creator, preserver, and destroyer of all things, in 
which signification it is essence and not pure be- 
ing. Thirdly, it may be taken as transcending all 
conceptions of creation, preservation and destruc- 
tion, these latter being mere illusions in the con- 
sciousness of men. This consciousness (AhanJcara 
or Ego-ness) is the disease which produces the 
dream of the world — or the Maya. Brahma does 
not produce this disease nor cure it ; he does not 
produce the world nor destroy it. For there is no 
world produced nor destroyed, but only a dream of 
such generation and destruction which dream is 
also not produced by Brahma, but by conscious- 
ness. ' This concept is that of pure being as distin- 
guished from essence. 



ESSENCE. 301 

Hence the East Indian religion posits in its sub- 
stance-religion, as I have said, pure being or es- 
sence in so far as they are identical in negating the 
world, and the one or the other in so far as they 
differ. The Buddhist Xiddnas, or twelve succes- 
sive causes of finitude, contain also this doctrine. 
For the first one of these is ignorance of the true 
nature of external existences — they seem to be solid 
realities, whereas they are in fact only illusive sem- 
blances without any substantial basis. This ignor- 
ance which takes worldly things for true being is 
the source of the second of the Xiddnas, or action. 
For seeing things as they are and noting their im- 
perfection w x e naturally conceive a desire to change 
them by our wills and we act. Thence follows dis- 
crimination of self from the world — through rec- 
ognizing our own actions w r e come to know our- 
selves, and this is the third of the Xiddnas, 
etc. 

These religions of substance look upon the abso- 
lute as essence related to the world as creator, pre- 
server, and destroyer. The beings of nature and 
the personal units of mankind possess no substance 
over against Brahma. 

Hegel in his Phenomenology accordingly comes 
thirdly to consider the religions of spiritual indi- 
viduality culminating in Christianity, which he 
makes the completely adequate and final religion. 
Final because it recognizes completely the person- 
ality of the object. Subject in this religion returns 
into itself completely in its object and hence the 
atonement is perfected. 






: 



302 hegei/s logic. 

Having seen that the idea of personality is th 
ultimatum of the categories of thought and ex 
hibited this in the first three divisions of the Phe- 
nomenology, through the stages of consciousness, 
perception, and understanding, arriving at the self- 
activity necessarily presupposed in the object, he 
next exhibited the logical steps through which the 
mind of the race had reached the same conclusion 
and enunciated it in religious dogmas. 

Hence after our second category essence, we 
shall expect a third category idea or personality. 
This second book will be the unfolding and 
clearing up of the presuppositions of media- 
tion. 

In the logic of being we had three stadia — qual- 
ity, quantity, and measure. In each of these there 
was a side of immediate reality presupposed. In 
quality we thought that we had the reality directly 
before us ; in quantity we had instead of the direc 
reality, the direct reality and its direct negation as 
return-into-self ; in short we had being-for-itself 
and self-determination in the place of direct real- 
ity. But in quantity we seize this immediateness 
as self-mediated, only as external independence. 
In measure we discover how quantity makes qual 
ity and wherein it fails to do this. The process of 
quantitative ratios deals with the so-called reality 
until we come to the process from one quality to 
another and to qualitative " leaps. " Then the 
continuity of quantity vanishes and with it all 
direct hold on reality. The reality proves not to 
be grounded on reality, but on some process that 



: 






ESSENCE. 303 

transcends reality altogether. It is a process that 
gives rise to reality as a sort of manifestation or 
revelation of itself,, but which needs something 
more than the real fully to reveal or manifest it 
and hence negates the reality besides positing it. 
Both of these sides are needed for the revelation of 
the substance or essence — first the positive side in 
the production of quality, quantity, and measure, 
secondly its negative side in the annulment of all 
these. 

The three chief sub-categories of essence are (a) 
essence as reflection-into-itself (or abstract essence); 
(b) phenomenon ; (c) actuality. These are sub- 
divided into three sub-categories each, and under- 
neath this second division there is sub-division 
and sub-division again. 

\Te need to note here a slight difference between 
the arrangement given in the large logic and that 
of the small logic (of the Encyclopedia). In the 
large logic the secondary sub-divisions run as fol- 
lows : Under (1) essence as reflection come (a) 
appearance (Schein) including its explanation 
through the three forms of reflection — positing 
external and determining reflection ; (b) The de- 
terminations of reflection including identity, dis- 
tinction, and contradiction ; (c) Ground including 
distinctions of form and matter — explanations 
through ground and condition. 

(2) Phenomenon has three subdivisions : (a) ex- 
istence, including under it a discussion of thing 
and its properties, (b) The law of the pheno- 
menon and the two worlds, the phenomenal world 






304 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 



of change and the noumenal (an-sicli-seyende) 
world not subject to change. (c) Force and its 
correlation as implied in the doctrine of the total- 
ity and as itself leading up to the doctrine of ex- 
ternal and internal. 

(3) Actuality ( WirMichkeif) has also three sub- 
divisions: (a) The absolute and its modes, (i) 
Actuality as necessity, (c) Substantiality, causal- 
ity and reciprocal action. 

The logic of the Encyclopaedia differs in its 
arrangement from the above,, first in placing exist- 
ence and thing as the second and third topics re- 
spectively under the first general subdivision in- 
stead of the second. (2) It moreover makes thing 
a coordinate category to existence and not a sub- 
category under it. (3) It changes also the place of 
the category of form and content placing it under 
phenomenon in the second division, instead of un 
der " ground " in the first division. But it leaves 
matter and form in the first division, not however 
under ground, but under thing. 

These changes it will be seen are in part only the 
change of the dividing line between the first and 
second chief sub-categories. In the large logic he 
drew this line before existence and thing, in the 
Encyclopaedia he drew it after these. The real 
change consists in placing the category of form un- 
der the category of thing instead of under the 
category of ground, and indeed of splitting this 
into two instead of three sub-categories and plac- 
ing the first part under thing while the second 
part furnishes the first sub-category of Pheno- 






ESSENCE. 305 

menon. Thus in the large logic under ground 
stood (a) form and essence ; (b) form and matter ; 
(c) form and content. Then succeeded explanation 
by grounds and conditions. In the Encyclopcedia, 
the whole first division of essence is called ground 
and under its third sub-topic, which is thing, 
comes a discussion of form and matter pending 
which we pass over to Phenomenon by reaching 
the idea of Form and Content. Accordingly form 
and content are taken up in the second division of 
essence (entitled phenomenon). But we have seen 
in treating the Phenomenology that "the pheno- 
menal and supersensuous worlds " were arrived at 
through the idea of force as a totality. But in the 
large logic he has changed his exposition so as to 
bring this from thing and its composition out of 
matters. This view is substantially retained in the 
Encyclopedia except that it is presented as the 
first sub-heading under phenomenon. 

We shall have further considerations to make 
when we come to the details of this book on 
essence. Meanwhile we must recall what was said 
in discussing the criticism of Trendelenburg in 
Chapter X. Hegel develops a priori the idea by 
determining more specifically the next preceding 
idea, as for example from becoming he derives the 
idea of determinate being, inasmuch as becoming 
when taken as a complete or absolute thought is 
found to be return-to-self, and this thought is that 
of being with determination. We find the thought 
first a priori and then its name by an empirical 
process of identification. We have to look about 



a 



306 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

among our concepts to discover what the new 
thought corresponds to and what that thought has 
been named. Thus there is as was explained (in 
that chapter) a thread of experience as well as a 
thread of a priori deduction in the dialectic 
method. }Ye deduce a new thought and then 
identify it with some thought previously familiar 
to us and name it by the word already in use for 
that thought. It may be inquired : What would 
happen in case a new thought arose which coul 
not be identified with any previous thought ? Th 
answer is that such new thought would certainly 
be a synthesis of some familiar thought with 
another — in other words, a modification of some al- 
ready familiar thought. Hence it would be possi- 
ble to state the new thought in terms of the old, 
and this is in fact the method actually adopted by 
the race when it makes new words for its new 
ideas. It forms its new word so as to suggest the 
familiar element identified in the new. Every new 
thought is and must be a modification of a previ- 
ous thought, as is evident from the fact that all 
thought is some determination of the ego, and each 
thought must be distinguished from every other by 
difference in determination. It follows that the 
general possibility of thought is the common 
ground as the matter or stuff that is determined 
into particular thoughts. 

Unquestionably Hegel deduced correctly the 
thoughts following the "determinations of reflec- 
tion/" but he was puzzled to identify them with 
the categories of essence in current use in the Ger- 



ESSENCE. 307 

man language. This is the difficulty in any lan- 
guage for the reason that the words for these deter- 
minations have a sliding scale of use and are not 
always employed for the same thoughts. The stage 
of consciousness that thinks its thoughts on the 
standpoint of being and supposes itself to perceive 
true actuality sensuously will use all its categories, 
of essence in the sense of categories of being. The 
whole matter of determining the true import of 
the words that are used for such categories is one 
of investigating the usage that they have had in 
the history of philosophy. Spinoza's use of the 
term substance is the clew to its philosophical sig- 
nificance in modern time, and Hegel does well to 
name the first sub-category of actuality by this 
word. But his use of words to name the ideas in- 
termediate between the categories of reflection and 
those of actuality is evidently open to criticism 
and was felt to be so by him. 

Even the important categories of force and thing- 
are not placed with absolute certainty, as one sees by 
the variation between the two expositions as above 
shown. At the same time one must admit that 
these two categories do not belong by any possibil- 
ity to either actuality or reflection. One would be 
inclined to say that they could not, either of them, 
belong to the first of the three parts of essence, but 
Hegel concluded to place thing under the first part 
when he wrote his Encyclopaedia. The uncertainty 
culminates in the question of the sub-categories of 
form. Aristotle had originated the philosophical 
use of this word, or indeed he may be said to 



308 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 

borrow it from Plato, who uses the word idea 
(eidos) in the sense of self-determining form, 
This is a very high place for the form-category 
and Hegel could not adopt it although he em- 
ployed the Greek word idea in the sense that Plato 
indicated. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

KEFLECTIOK AS THE KEY TO HEGEl/S DIALECTIC. 

ESSENCE in the first place is Keflection-into- 
itself. Just as return-into-self makes the 
"form of being/' and being is self -relation, so 
essence is a return-to-self but a still deeper one 
than being. Quality and quantity and measure, 
all forms of immediateness are annulled in essence. 
Their determinations are not continuous but per- 
ish or change, and the deep bond that connects 
them as their originator and their destroyer is 
this renection-into-itself of the negative — a pro- 
cess which we call essence (Wesen.) 

This process of negative self-relation has been 
described before in this book when treating of the 
dialectic of the Phenomenology by which self-con- 
sciousness arises out of the understanding. "The 
repulsion of the homonymous and the attraction 
of the heteronymous" is the expression Hegel 
uses. We have called attention to the same in 
explaining the category of being-for-itself. 

As is always his custom, since his method re- 
quires it, Hegel commences the subject of essence 
by adducing the shallowest examples of its ap- 
plication. He speaks of the " essential and un- 
essential." These categories are used where two 
indifferent existences are spoken of, one of which 

309 



310 hegel's logic. 

is and the other is not essential to something. 
These are not related to each other as essence 
and phenomenon. The one is as much a being 
as the other is. Here, therefore, we have not 
the thought of Eeflection-into-itself out of all 
immecliateness and consequently not essence in 
the sense demanded. The true meaning of 
essence is different; it is not a category which is 
opposed to another on a par with it, so to speak, 
but it (essence) should be a deeper reality, not 
on the same plane with that of Avhich it is the 
essence. In contrast to its essence immediate re- 
ality is only an appearance or manifestation. The 
appearance is that which is not through itself 
but through another — not another appearance, but 
through a self-mediated being or essence. 

Appearance {Scliein — show or seeming) is there- 
fore a more adequate concept of what is left of 
the categories of being than were said categories. 
All immediateness is appearance, or seeming, or 
manifestation of an essence which is a negative 
activity lying behind it. This is the second step 
in Hegel's treatment of this theme. He now 
examines appearance to find that it is reflection 
{Reflexion.) Immediateness as we found it in 
the categories of being was taken for self-exist- 
ent entity; immediateness as it has proved it- 
self to be on critical examination is . only a de- 
terminateness or one-sided phase of the total 
activity which is essence. Its "dialectic" has 
brought us to essence. For when we placed the 
categories of being successively "under the form 



REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 311 

of eternity/' or assumed them to be complete 
and independent definitions of absolute reality — 
in other words, assumed quality and quantity, etc., 
to be independent beings — we found them self- con- 
tradictory ; each one was found to imply other 
and different determinateness, not congruent with 
its first definition in order to make possible said 
first definition. The dialectic is the discovery of 
necessary or logical presuppositions. The dialectic 
is objective as well as subjective, because it is the 
discovery of what is logically presupposed by, or 
necessary to the objective existence of any descrip- 
tion of being. In order that qualitative distinc- 
tion shall exist or be real, it is requisite that there 
shall be other-being in relation to the somewhat; it 
is necessary that somewhat shall be its own other ; 
it is necessary that all existence shall be finite or 
changeable — each somewhat shall be in a process 
of becoming its other; it is necessary, moreover, 
that these dependent and changeable somewhats 
shall exist in a total that is independent and self- 
related and infinite — a being-f or-itself . 

This is Hegel's dialectic — to discover all the log- 
ical implications or necessary presuppositions of a 
category. When thought in this way the category 
is "seen in its truth." 

Seen in their truth all the categories of being — 
ail the determinations of immediateness are seen to 
be phases produced and also annulled (aufgelioben) 
by the true reality which is seen to be a self-active 
process, or self-determination. The insight which 
sees self-determination is of course the insight into 



312 hegel's logic. 

the third and final great category — Begriff or Idee. 
This insight must, however, be in the possession of 
the student who would follow the " dialectic " of 
Hegel's Logic — just as it was necessary for its au- 
thor before he could write it, or any portion of it. 
But the human mind does not come to the insight 
into the categories of the absolute Idea before it 
comes to use the categories of essence. On the 
contrary it first makes the categories of essenco ab- 
solute, and refers everything to Force and Matter, 
and Cause and Substance, before it sees that all 
these are impossible except through Personality 
and that personality is the absolute. 

When under the sway of the categories of es 
sence the mind believes in formless substance and 
denies the immortality of the soul or, indeed, the 
permanent individuality of any form of existence 
It sees all form to be accidental and transient. 

The inherent necessity of such categories as ar 
found in essence to presuppose other categories 
which are more complete and adequate will, how 
ever, lead the mind unconsciously to the discovery 
of new "moments" or phases which when syn 
thetically united to the definitions already posit ec 
(or explicitly stated) in said categories will elevate 
the mind to new insights. First the mind wil 
travel upward through an ascending series of sub- 
categories of essence. Then it will reach the cat- 
egory of Idea or self -activity (Begriff). Then it 
will ascend along the sub-categories of self -activity 
until it reaches the adequate idea of the absolute. 

But in his large logic Hegel thought it necessary 



: 

I 

e 

: 



KEFLECTION AS THE KEY. 313 

to show up the internal nature of all these catego- 
ries of essence in the first chapter of this second 
book. He accordingly does this under the head of 
Reflection, treating it under the sub-topics of pos- 
iting reflection (setzende Reflexion), external reflec- 
tion (dussere Reflexion), and determining reflec- 
tion {bestimmende Reflexion), — determining reflec- 
tion signifying that activity of return-into-self 
which creates distinctions or particularizes — in 
other words the activity by which the universal 
becomes particular individuals. 

In the small logic (of the Encyclopedia) this 
elaborate discussion of Reflection is omitted, and 
we find only the "Determinations of Reflection" 
(Die reinen Reflexionsbestimmungen). These de- 
terminations of reflection are namely, (1) iden- 
tity, (2) distinction (under which as sub-categories 
in the small logic, are difference, antithesis of 
contraries, and contradiction), and (3) ground. 
The large logic, does not, however, include ground 
among these categories of reflection, but makes 
them to be identity, distinction (including antithe- 
sis of contraries) and contradiction. 

Now this deviation in the Encyclopedia from 
the arrangement in the large logic does not seem 
a serious one when we come to understand that 
the paragraphs on reflection in the large logic 
amount only to an explanation of the process 
by which the categories of reflection originate out 
of self-activity. Hence the whole discussion of 
reflection is a part of the exposition of the determi- 
nations of reflection, and necessary in fact for com- 



a- 



314 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

prehending their origin and their deficiencies 
The small logic does not attempt any such funda 
mental explanations, however. Identity rises fro 
the self-relation of the negative ; distinction in it 
three forms is produced by the negating or deter 
mining which this self -relation involves ; contra 
diction is distinction seen in its completest form ; 
ground is the total process of self -activity as under- 
lying these phases (or "determinations of reflec- 
tion"). 

It is very easy to defend either arrangement of 
these topics, but that of the small logic is Hegel's 
latest, and might on that ground seem preferable. 
Justifying it we may say, for example, that con- 
tradiction is the absolute distinction (*. e. self-re- 
lated distinction, or distinction of the self from 
the self) and hence should fall under distinction as 
a sub-category (as in the Encyclopaedia). Or, on 
the other hand, we may say that ground is not a 
determination of reflection, but rather the higher 
category which contains all of those determinations 
(identity and distinction) — as in the large logic. 
AYe may also say that contradiction, being self-dis- 
tinction, contains both identity and distinction, and 
is therefore not a sub-category of distinction, and 
thus again we sustain the arrangement of the large 
logic. Taken thus contradiction is very nearly 
what ground is in the later arrangement. Like 
wise we may defend the classification of ground as 
a determination of reflection (Encyclopedia) by 
saying that the movement of reflection (return 
into-self) produces (a) identity, (i) distinction or 



REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 315 

difference, and (c) their unity in a ground or sub- 
strate. 

Leaving these questions of classification we will 
now come to the essential matter in hand, the dis- 
cussion of reflection as the key to the dialectic, 
and to the genesis of all thought and all being — 
in short, reflection or return-into-self as the ex- 
planation of everything. 

REFLECTION OR RETURN-TO-SELF. 

"In the evolution of the categories of being, 
the being of the determinateness lies at the basis ; 
this is relation to other. But the movement of 
reflection now under consideration does not contain 
relation to other, but self -negation rather, — the 
self-relation of its negation gives it the form of 
being, and is all the being that it has" (II. p. 14). 
AVe have in the preceding chapters called attention 
often to this " form of being " = self -relation. A 
negation relating to itself takes the form of being. 
In fact there is no other being whatever than this 
"form of being," which arises through the self - 
/relation of the negative. " In other words," says 
Hegel, "since this relation to itself is the negating 
of negation, we have [in this sphere of Essence] 
negation existent as negation — in short, as that 
whose only being is in its being-negated — this is 
the category of Appearance (Schein). The ' other ' 
in the sphere of essence, is not an other being 
which limits or negates the somewhat, but it is ne- 
gation with negation. But the immediate, or be- 
ing, is only this identity of the negation with itself 



316 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

— negated negation or absolute negativity. This 
identity with itself which constitutes immediate- 
ness, is therefore not a first immediate from which 
we start [as a fixed realit} r ] and from which we pass 
over to another, namely to its negation ; nor is it 
a substratum of existence which moves from the 
first to the other and returns [remaining identical 
under the movement], but the immediate is only 
this movement itself" (II. p. 15). That is to say, 
the relation of the negative to itself produces iden- 
tity and immediateness because negative self-rela- 
tion is the annulment of all mediation. Continu- 
ing our translation and paraphrase : ' i The becom- 
ing in the sphere of essence, its reflecting [bend- 
ing-back=r return] movement is therefore the move- 
ment from nothing to nothing, and hence a return 
to itself. Transition or becoming in this sense 
[since it does not pass over or become other] annuls 
its transition or becoming. [To become the self- 
same is not to become but to abide.] The ' other' 
which originates in this transition is not the not- 
being of a being, but the nothing of a nothing, 
and this negation of the nothing constitutes being. 
Being [in this sphere] is only the movement of 
nothing to nothing, and this is essence itself. Es- 
sence does not have this movement within it, but it 
is this movement, — it is the absolute appearance 
itself, the pure negativity which has nothing out- 
side of itself that it negates, but which negates 
only its negative self and is only in this negation ,J 
(II. p. 15). 






REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 317 

The Positing Reflection, 

Being, as has been stated, is the product of self- 
relation, and not a substrate lying at the basis of 
self -relation and relation-to-others. But how then 
do we come to look upon it as a substrate ? What 
is the law of the mind by which we are naturally 
inclined or prompted to look for being as the basis 
of relation instead of relation as the basis of being? 
The answer to this question is found in the dis- 
cussion of reflection here entered upon by Hegel. 
No other philosopher in the entire range of the 
history of thought ever penetrated so far as Hegel 
into the genesis of these " determinations of re- 
flection/' these categories of the understanding or 
"plain common sense" of mankind. The dicta 
founded on these categories seem incontrovertible ; 
the understanding seems to see ultimate reality. 
And yet the poetic sense of mankind contradicts 
this " common-sense." So too, and more emphat- 
ically does the religious sense and that higher phil- 
osophical sense which endows the mystics. For 
the finest quality of philosophical insight, such for 
example as Plato, Bonaventura, Schelling or Yon 
Baader possessed, sees the limitations of the cate- 
gories of reflection, and discerns their inadequacy 
to express ultimate truth. Not any one of them 
will serve as predicates for the Absolute First Prin- 
ciple. And yet the mystics have never been able 
to disentangle their philosophical expositions from 
the meshes formed by these categories. They have 
been obliged to use the terms essence and phenome- 



318 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

non, identity and difference, form and content, 
power and manifestation, substance and attributes, 
cause and effect. Nay, more, ive shall be obliged to 
use them, and Hegel has been obliged to use them. 
But Hegel is the first thinker who has analyzed 
the entire movement of reflection and shown up its 
every phase. Indeed, this may be called Hegel's 
one merit, including all his other discoveries 
as consequences flowing from this insight. There 
were suggestions in Plato's Parmenides, in Aris- 
totle's Posterior Analytics, in Nicolas of Cusa's 
Docta Ignorantia ; and more especially in Kant's 
Amphibolie cler Reflexions-Begriffe and Fichte's 
Science of Knowledge — these being the inspirer 
of Hegel's investigation. But the treatment o 
this subject in this second volume of the large 
logic is after all an entirely new and complete ex- 
position of what is necessary for an insight into 
the workings of the "mere human intellect," so- 
called. After the mastery of this exposition one 
does not turn away from the reasonings of the 
logical mind nor appeal in desperation to a higher 
intuition, a direct insight into ultimate truth, nor 
scout demonstration or proof, but one sees the dia- 
lectic underlying the operations of the understand- 
ing and is able to point out its self-contradictions. 
He is able, indeed, to show the true view as a nec- 
essary presupposition of the skeptical position of 
the understanding. 

Using these categories of reflection the under- 
standing is obliged to assume a skeptical attitude 
toward all spiritual doctrines of man and nature. 



i 






KEFLECTION AS THE KEY. 319 



But its own substructure is spiritual, and its neg- 
ative deliverances can be refuted by an appeal to 
their pre-suppositions — as in the case of the third 
antinomy of Kant (discussed in another chapter). 

This kept in view, the reader of Hegel's discus- 
sion of reflection will find matter of the highest 
interest. 

The chief point to be seized is the difference 
between positing (setzende) reflection and pre- 
supposing (voraussetzende) reflection. 

The answer to our question asked above — how 
do we come to look upon being as a substrate of 
all relation and activity ? — is found in the nature 
of reflection. "The relation of the negative to 
itself is, therefore, its return into itself ; it is im- 
mediateness as the annulment of the negation ; but 
immediateness is nothing but this relation (to the 
negative), or return from a negative, and hence 
an immediateness that cancels itself. This is pos- 
ited being" (II. p. 16). 

Quality, quantity, and measure have been proved 
to be appearance (Schein) and not substrates. 
The substrate is a negative activity and this nega- 
tive activity is what we are considering. It is a 
self-related, or absolute negation. The first 
phase of it is its self -relation which gives us im- 
mediateness. A relation which does not go out 
to another does not arrive at mediation, but re- 
mains immediate. So too a self -relation which 
does go out and relates to another, but which re- 
lates to itself as its own other, is an immediate, 
or results in an immediate. The mind, for exam- 



320 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

pie, is a self -related negative activity. It is self- 
relation that produces immediateness or being, 
namely personal identity or individuality— self- 
hood. 

"Keflection is positing in so far as it is imme- 
diateness as return ; there is indeed no other 
from which it returns or to which it returns " (II. 
p. 17). It is only the negative relating to itself 
w T hich posits this immediateness. But the nega- 
tive in relating to itself must negate itself and 
annul itself ; it must determine itself, for every 
negation is also determination. Hence the im- 
mediateness is not only posited by this return to 
relation-to-self, but it is also annuled or cancelled. 
This new phase is presupposition. For it annuls 
or determines its own immediateness as if it found 
it already extant and not as if it posited it in the 
very act of negating it. 

Positing and presupposing reflection are there- 
fore the two aspects of reflection. As self-relation 
it is a positing of immediateness ; as self -negating 
it is a presupposing of being as a substrate. Let 
one of these phases be unconscious and the other 
a conscious one and we have the stage of insight 
known as the understanding which presupposes 
being as a substrate and not as a self-relation or 
positing activity. 

" Immediateness is as a return only the negative 
of itself, only the self-negation of immediateness. 
But reflection is the annulment of the negative 
of itself — it is going-together with itself — (or self- 
identification-in-an other); it therefore annuls its 



KEFLECTIOST AS THE KEY. 321 

positing in the very act of positing and is presup- 
posing [pre-positing]." (II. p. 17.) 

Eeturn to self is as negative also a procedure 
outwards into non-identity or difference, a going 
of the one into the many. The positing phase of 
reflection produces identity and the presupposing 
phase produces difference. " The return of es- 
sence is consequently its repulsion from itself" 
(II. p. 17.) 

Looking again at it as a total movement we see 
that the production of immediateness through self- 
relation is an annulment of the negative activity 
which constitutes the return or reflection. Hence 
in arriving at identity it arrives at the opposite of 
itself — hence at non-identity or difference in- 
stead of identity. But to arrive at non-identity 
or pure difference is to arrive at self -negativity 
which is the very same thing as the reflection itself, 
hence in arriving at difference it arrives at iden- 
tity. This thought of self -negativity is therefore 
a perfect " counter-impulse-in-itself " (see Phenom- 
enology, p. 122). By this we can follow Hegel 
when he says, "It is -by annuling its self -identity 
that essence first arrives at identity; it presupposes 
itself and by annuling this presupposition it is 
itself; and conversely the annulment of this pre- 
supposition is the act of presupposition itself" 
(II. p. 17.) For in negating itself it presupposes 
an immediate or self-identity which it negates. 
But by such act of negation it comes into self- 
relation and thus posits identity and immediate- 
ness. But this is the production of what is differ- 






322 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

ent from the negative activity itself. It is, so to 
speak, a living activity resulting in a dead result 
and thereby contradicting itself. But this very 
act of contradiction is the arrival of the differen- 
tiating activity again and hence a new identity 
arises. Thus we have alternation of identity and 
difference each one immediately the generator of 
its opposite. This is what Hegel means by Begriff 
and it is the explanation of the categories of re- 
flection as already stated. 

EXTERNAL REFLECTION. 

With the first phase of this discussion Hegel has 
discovered two phases, positing and presupposing. 
Each extends into the other and is productive of 
the other. Within the total activity of reflection, 
the former, the positing phase, results in the an- 
nulment of the return movement, for it is the 
production of immediateness, which is no return. 
But as an annulment of the return movement it is 
the production of difference and this is a contra- 
diction of the return movement or the presuppos- 
ing phase of reflection. Taking these two phases 
as independent of each other we have what Hegel 
calls " external reflection." External reflection 
always presupposes a being as a substrate. It 
negates and determines some already existent, im- 
mediate being. 

The " plain common sense" in thinking of cause 
and effect, force and manifestation, identity and 
difference, etc., always makes these to be relations 
existing between independent entities. The cause 









REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 323 

is one existence and the effect is another. The 
force acts on something else and its manifestation 
•is a joint product of the two. Identity is taken 
as dead sameness, and difference is never to be re- 
garded as self-difference, but as difference of two 
utterly independent beings, and hence difference 
is only a subjective product of our reflection in- 
stead of being a product of objective reflection or 
the movement of the essence of things. 

" In the first place external reflection in presup- 
posing immediateness or identity [i. e., being as a 
substrate] presupposes itself as annulled " (II. p. 
19). For being or immediateness is the annul- 
ment of reflection through self-relation. But ex- 
ternal reflection determines [or defines or limits] 
this presupposed being — that is to say it annuls it, 
and thereby asserts its sway over it. External re- 
flection, as understanding, first presupposes things 
as independent of each other and then it asserts 
interaction and mutual influence, or the determin- 
ing of one through another objectively. Hence 
external reflection sets up two extremes — the im- 
mediate and the reflection into itself. The middle 
between these extremes is the determined immedi- 
ate containing both these extremes as moments or 
phases — the result containing, of course, the two 
factors that have produced it (II. pp. 19, 20). 

Hegel has only to exhibit the steps by which 
this unconscious procedure becomes conscious of 
the union of these two phases in one activity to 
elevate us out of this stage of external reflection 
into " determining reflection." 



324 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

DETERMINING REFLECTION. 

External reflection at first presupposes inde- 
pendent, immediate being. But it proceeds to de- 
termine it or modify it by external, negative in- 
fluences. Hence it implicitly denies this immedi- 
ateness or self -identity, and makes it dependent on 
others or exposed to alien influences — in other 
words it makes it to be ^n appearance (Schein) 
and not an ultimate reality. But appearance is a 
return (t. e., that which refers us to another for its 
essence — hence that which points out for us its 
origin in another ; but that which points to its' ori- 
gin is a return movement, according to Hegel). 
Thus external reflection annuls its presupposed be- 
ings and turns them into reflection-movements or 
positings. For it is the self -relation of the nega- 
tive that is shown in the category of appearance. 
It points back to its origin and this is a relating of 
its negation to itself. Appearance therefore is the 
manifestation of essence. 

Therefore Hegel's analysis of external reflection 
discovers all the phases of absolute reflection, but 
not synthetically united. It begins with the pre- 
supposing reflection and then proceeds to substi- 
tute the positing reflection for it, and returns to 
the presupposing reflection again in the result : 
first, two independent beings ; second, one of them 
acts as cause on the other ; third, the effect is the 
result, now independent again. 

External reflection coming to consider carefully 
the extremes, finds each to involve the entire 
movement of reflection. For being or reflection- 



REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 325 

into-itself involves negative relation which differ- 
entiates. The presupposing activity which is that 
of differentiation results again in self-identity. 

Here we have the determination of reflection — ■ 
the category which "contains within itself its rela- 
tion to its other" (II. p. 25). Cause contains with- 
in its own definition an express relation to effect ; 
effect likewise its essential relation to cause. So, 
too, force contains express reference to manifesta- 
tion ; identity to difference ; positive to negative ; 
essence to phenomenon. 

Reflection in other words contains, first, posited- 
being or dependence — the negativity which relates 
to itself by self-annulment or appearance. Second- 
ly, it contains self -relation as immediateness or self- 
identity. The phase of posited being is the side of 
phenomenal appearance — of effect or manifestation 
— express dependence on an independent. The side 
of self-relation as immediateness or independence 
is the essence or force or cause — the correlative of 
phenomenon and that which expresses the original 
and independent source. 

RESUME OF REFLECTION. 

1. Immediate objects or beings of the world 
pass away or change. 

2. The objects aforesaid are therefore processes 
in which the negative is active. All that is 
immediate is negative or perishing and self-an- 
nuling. 

3. Hence we have the self -related negative as 
the outcome of our investigation of being. 



326 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

4. The negative as self -relative is self-identical, 
for relation to self is the production of identity. 

5. Self -relation or self -identity is immediateness 
because the same is related to the same without 
mediation of a different. 

6. But it is the self-relation of the negative and 
hence a self-negative, or a difference-producing 
process ; hence this reflection-into-itself is also a 
repulsion from itself, a movement into opposition 
to itself. 

7. Hence the identity and immediateness is 
destroyed. 

8. The self-relation resulting in identity or im- 
mediateness is the phase of reflection called 
" positing ; " this positing activity is annulled 
by self-negation, or the difference-producing 
activity. 

9. The positing activity is also annulled -by pro- 
ducing the immediateness, or identity, for the lat- 
ter is the denial of reflection, or of any mediating 
movement whatever. 

10. The production of immediateness as the an- 
nulment of the positing activity becomes in conse- 
quence a presupposing activity. For if the imme- 
diate being is underived it is an original, inde- 
pendent being and consequently presupposed. 

11. Hence the reflection-into-itself becomes a 
reflection out-of -itself — a bending back to the 
point of view of the categories of being. It is the 
phase of self -repulsion contained in reflection. Its 
reflection into itself is accompanied with the pro- 
duction of an " other/' 






REFLECTION AS THE KEY. 327 

12. Heace reflection produces difference. 

13. But the production of difference is the re- 
storation of the movement of reflection — or the 
activity of negation — and hence again an arrival at 
self-identity and immediateness. Its " other " or 
the immediate identity stops the activity of the 
negative and annuls it. But this is a negation of 
the reflection and therefore the production of dif- 
ference again. 

14. But this production of difference is the re- 
turn of the negative to itself and hence a new 
identity or immediateness, etc. 

15. Thus the identity and difference alternates 
as the eternal rhythm of self-activity. Eeflection 
as negation related to itself produces identity and 
then immediateness ; and positing becomes presup- 
posing, and thus turns identity into difference and 
annuls immediateness and thus undermines itself as 
essence and becomes phenomenon again, and so 
ad infinitum. 

THE DIALECTIC OXLY REFLECTION. 

This analysis of reflection unveils for us the dia- 
lectic movement which we have seen in glimpses 
hitherto. The arrival at a new category has been 
attended with the unfolding of the subordinate 
"moments" into their opposition. Each however 
in order to sustain itself has been shown to imply, 
or presuppose the other moment in its own activ- 
ity. Hence, a synthesis of the two sides has re- 
sulted and we have arrived at a new category — say 
determinate being from becoming — whose moments 



L_ 



328 HEGEL'S LOGIC. 

(beginning and ceasing) have each added the other 
to itself. The new category (determinate being 
or Daseyri) arising from the identity of its mo- 
ments now develops a difference of a higher order 
through its moments (determinate being develops 
beginning and ceasing into " somewhat " with a 
limit and ceasing and beginning into "other"), 
each moment contains the entire distinction di- 
vided between the moments of the previous cate 
gory, but unfolds a new distinction not so empty as 
the previous one. Thus we have reflection-into 
itself producing identity in a new category, but 
at the same time as negative relation to itself repel 
ling into difference (the determinateness of th< 
being in Daseyn develops opposition to being 
and we have finitude). 

Thus reflection is the key to the Hegelian 
method. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 

THIS second book of the logic starts with the 
idea of appearance (Scheiri), which is the 
outcome of being as shown in the first book, and 
ascends to the idea of cause as the most concrete 
category of essence. 

Having devoted much space to the consideration 
of reflection as the clew to the dialectic and 
especially to these categories of essence, we may 
treat in a more summary manner what fol- 
lows. 

THE DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION. 

These "determinations " or categories are iden- 
tity, difference (or distinction), and contradiction 
( Wider spruch). Each may be taken according to 
the shallow or abstract method first. According 
to this, identity means simple sameness without 
difference. It is formulated in a principle. We 
say : "A rose is a rose " or " wisdom is wisdom/' 
or A is A. 

This is empty tautology and yet the principle 
which we apply in these cases is fundamental. 
Hegel however hastens away from this tautology to 
the deeper thought involved in identity which we 
have already expounded in the previous chapter, 



330 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

the identity which rests on the self -relation of the 
negative. This is concrete identity because it is 
the only real identity — an identity which produces 
and annuls difference. 

In a remark Hegel calls attention to the reason 
why these categories of reflection take on so read- 
ily the form of propositions. The negative self- 
relation has, as we have seen, the two forms of 
positing and presupposing, the former the produc- 
tion of identity, the latter the production of differ- 
ence. Self-relation is the form of reflection and 
it underlies the form of the proposition and sug- 
gests it. 

Since identity is the return-to-itself of the nega- 
tive, it is inseparable from distinction or difference. 
It is self-distinction. But the shallow view notes 
only the first form of distinction which is variety 
or abstract difference ( Verscliiedenlieit). This is 
not essential difference, but difference without 
essential relation. The difference between a pencil 
and a lamp-post or between a whale and the bino- 
mial theorem is of this character. But all differ- 
ence when analyzed comes down to essential differ- 
ence or opposition — antithesis. The two objects 
differ because they have opposite properties. The 
lamp-post is long and the pencil is short, the for- 
mer heavy, the latter light, etc. 

The self -relation of the negative produces more 
than mere difference, it produces opposition ( Gegen- 
satz). But this is not all ; ojDposition or contra- 
riety rests on contradiction. For opposition im- 
plies unity or common ground, and origination in 



THE CATEGOEY OF CAUSALITY. 331 

self-relation; and self-opposition is contradiction. 
These are the three steps of the category of distinc- 
tion : abstract difference (indifferent difference), 
contrariety, and contradiction. Self-relation of 
the negative gives rise to all of these. But contra- 
diction is the full form of difference — the basis, so 
to speak. With contradiction we have arrived at 
a more fundamental category, namely ground. For 
the self -relation of the negative produces identity 
as much as difference, and the unity of difference 
and identity is ground. 

By reason of the point of view which shows con- 
tradiction as underlying contrariety, Hegel comes 
to speak in a confusing manner of the latter and 
seems to confound contradiction with opposition, a 
very grave mistake in the minds of those who have 
adopted with all logicians the old Aristotelian dis- 
tinction of contraries (kvavriai) from the oppo- 
sition of affirmative and negative in the form of 
contradiction (ocvriq)a6ii). The universal nega- 
tive is opposed to the universal affirmative as its 
contrary. But the universal affirmative is contra- 
dicted by its particular negative, or the universal 
negative by its particular affirmative. 

Schelling's polar opposites and not the judg- 
ments of formal logic are in Hegel's mind. The 
contrary implies identity as forming the basis of 
the opposition, but contradiction as self-negation 
or self-determination explicitly states the identity 
as the basis of the contrast. For it is the self 
which negates and is negated. Hence the contra- 
diction is the highest form of difference and at the 



332 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

same time the dialectical transition to the idea of 
ground. 

"Distinction is always contradiction at least 
implicitly (ansicli), for it is the unity of moments 
which are only in so far as they are not one, and it 
is the separation of moments which are sundered 
only as being terms of the same relation " (II. p. 
56.) Contradiction, taken abstractly, is a reduc- 
tion to zero. But secondly since it is only the im- 
mediate existence or phenomenal being that is an- 
nulled, the true positive result is a self-identity 
realized through the negation of the dependent 
and changeable phase. " The excluding activity 
of reflection which belongs to contraries in their 
independence reduces them to negative and merely 
posited (dependent) somewhats .... since 
dependence thereby returns to dependence and to 
unity with itself, it is now the category of essence 
which is named 'ground' (Grund)" (II. p. 
59). 

Hegel's discussion of the principle of excluded 
middle at this point is of a character to exasperate 
the student of formal logic, because his argument 
turns wholly on the assumption that contraries and 
not contradictories are referred to. Without tak- 
ing his own point of view and seeing the self -rela- 
tion of the negative as the key to the categories of 
identity and distinction, all that Hegel says on this 
subject is nonsense. But w T ith an insight into the 
doctrine of reflection, it is all true and very sugges- 
tive. 



the categoky of causality. 333 

ground or substrate. 

In the category of ground or substrate,, says He- 
gel/' the simple identity of essence is in immediate 
unity with its absolute negativity" (II. p. 71). 
That is to say : Reflection posits identity and non- 
identity by relating to itself ; its return is a self- 
repulsion. This sounds strange enough ; but it is 
only a correct analysis of the idea of substrate or 
ground underlying change, form and matter, thing 
and properties, and such categories. We never 
hesitate to suppose a matter that remains identical 
under all changes of form ; nor a substrate that is 
identical under all the different properties of a 
thing. 

The category of ground is taken by Hegel as the 
general rubric for the form distinctions. He has 
first, essence. and form ; secondly, form and matter ; 
and thirdly, form and content. For the shallow- 
abstract view which takes immediateness to be the 
truth, uses this distinction of ground without pen- 
etrating its meaning. Indeed it uses all distinc- 
tions with this same lack of penetration. Its " form 
and essence '* imagines the form to be an entirely 
external disposition and arrangement of parts ; the 
essence is entirely indifferent to the form which is 
given it. In the "form and matter " distinction 
reflection admits some importance to the form. It 
refers the differences of all things to the arrange- 
ment of the component parts, while said compo- 
nent parts are simple and identical. Composition 
explains everything. But on this account the 
simple identity called " matter " is not an object 



334 hegel's logic. 

of perception or observation, but only of reflection. 
It is a figment of the mind, an hypothesis feigned 
to solve the contradiction of multiplicity in unity. 

The third phase of thinking sees the true ex- 
planation in self -relation of negation, and compre- 
hends how the self-relation produces identity or 
ground as matter while it produces difference as 
form. But here the matter is created by the form, 
and it should properly be called Content. The 
content of a work of art should determine the form 
in which it is to be treated, and the form of the 
work of art determine the content which it may 
have. Content and form are therefore identical in 
the sense that content possesses form produced by 
it and form makes its own content. 

This leads us to the second phase of the category 
of ground, wherein it is stated more explicitly how 
the content determines its form, and how the form 
generates its own content. There are three ways 
in which this happens : (a) the formal ground, (i) 
the real ground, (c) the perfect ground. We might 
translate Gruncl here by the word explanation. 
The formal ground is the shallow-abstract way of 
explaining anything by identifying it with some 
other form of the same thing. Hegel calls it the 
tautological mode of explanation. " The ground 
is wet because it has rained/' i. e., the water on 
the ground is the same as the water in the rain 
that fell from the sky. The real ground, on the 
other hand, seeks out the differences, and endeav- 
ors to avoid the tautology. The stone falls because 
of gravity. But the house stands because of grav- 



THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 335 

ity. The same reason produces diverse results and 
the "real ground" attempts to explain how the 
like produces the different. This explanation is 
through the " conditioning mediation " (bedingende 
Vermittelung) which is the perfect ground (voll- 
stcindige Grund). The perfect explanation of a 
thing shows all stages of its history, and exhibits 
its action and reaction or reciprocal conditioning. 
The third phase of the ground category is dis- 
cussed under the head of " Condition ; " (a) the 
relatively unconditioned, (i) the absolutely uncon- 
ditioned, and (c) how a thing comes into existence. 
The conditioning limit (Bedingung) is explained by 
Hegel (II. p. 104) as follows : " The ground is 
immediate, but that which is grounded is medi- 
ated. But since the ground is positing reflection 
it reduces itself to posited being, and is presivppos- 
ing reflection : through this it comes to relate to 
itself as annulled — it relates to an immediate 
through which it itself is mediated." The cate- 
gory of condition is by this explained in terms of 
reflection. The ground in the first place is the 
immediate because it is the original or primitive 
source from whence the grounded proceeds. The 
grounded, on the other hand, is not immediate and 
original, but derivative from the ground. In the 
second place, the ground is conceived as acting to 
produce a grounded — or as supporting something 
else ; its activity is correlated to a passivity — it in 
fact produces that passivity or dependence ( Gesetzt- 
seyn) by its positing activity. It therefore "re- 
duces itself to posited-being," to borrow Hegel's 



336 hegei/s logic. 

expression. But the grounded as dependent and 
posited through another presupposes the ground 
that posits i^ and through its relation to the posit- 
ing ground relates back to itself as the product of 
the activity of the ground ; hence Hegel says that 
" it relates to itself as annulled/' for the original 
is the annulment of the derivative in the sense 
that independent contains the dependent as a can- 
celled moment of itself. 

But the category of Condition is something more 
than this category of Ground ; indeed it is the to- 
tality of ground and grounded, for both are condi- 
tions or " occasions " necessarily present in order 
that that there shall be any ground-relation what- 
ever. Each is necessary to the other, and the unity 
of the two, therefore, is demonstrated. This unity 
is the category of Condition (Bedingung) now un- 
der consideration. 

Hegel treats this category under three heads : 
(a) the relatively unconditioned, (b) the absolutely 
unconditioned, and (c) the emergence of the thing 
(Sache) into existence. 

Just as the relation of the category of difference 
to identity is expounded in the doctrine of reflec- 
tion, so here the relation of the category of condi- 
tioning limitation to that of ground or reason is 
expounded at length and with great subtlety. The 
student who wishes to master thoroughly the cate- 
gories of essence will by all means follow out the 
windings of this discussion. For us, however,in this 
place it is forbidden, and we must hasten on to the 
chief category of Essence, namely, Causality. 



THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 337 

The category of condition is the third or com- 
pleting category of ground, according to Hegel's 
larger logic. The logic of the Encyclopedia as 
before mentioned, makes for the first subdivision 
of essence, "Essence as ground of Existence" 
with sub-topics — 1. Categories of reflection(^) iden- 
tity, (b) difference, (c) ground ; 2. Existence ; 3. 
Thing. He makes no account of condition (Be- 
dingung) as connected with ground in the small 
logic, but transfers this category (Beclingimg) to 
that of Substantiality in the third part of Essence. 
In fact, in writing the large logic, Hegel must 
have found that the category of condition (Becling- 
ung) had a deeper meaning than he was able to 
give it as a phase of the category of ground, and 
accordingly he used it again later when expound- 
ing the ideas of " whole and parts " and force. 
His matured view, it would seem, placed this cate- 
gory under substantiality. 

This however does not invalidate the discussion 
of " condition" as a sub-category of ground in the 
larger logic. For the thought is there, although 
not named by the same words that he would finally 
have us name it. It is above all things necessary 
in this logic as in all philosophy worthy of the 
name, to be able to recognize the thought by the 
way in which words are used, i. e., by the functions 
predicated, rather than the definitions ascribed to 
them by custom or by the dictionary. In fact, 
many philosophical writers unconsciously contra- 
dict their own definitions of terms by ascribing 
functions to them which imply a wider or a nar- 



338 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

rower scope. We must look behind the conscious 
meaning to the actual meaning which possessed the 
author's mind, though he was not able to utter it 
adequately. In order to form a critical estimate of 
Hegel's thought, therefore, it is necessary to study 
this exposition, in the large logic, of the ground 
categories with especial reference to the inner sig- 
nificance of form and content. Because Hegel 
uses these distinctions form and content, form and 
matter, etc., frequently throughout his works in a 
subtle and mysterious manner. 

PHEHOMENOtf. 

• 

The second part of the treatment of essence 
comes under the general heading Phenomenon 
(Ursdieinung). We must understand by this not 
appearance or show (Scliein) in the sense of an un- 
reality, but rather the appearance as containing 
the positive action of the essence — appearance 
therefore as revealing all that there is of the es- 
sence — its entire negative self -relation. Pheno- 
menon is hence the totality of appearance — its en- 
tire sphere. 

How have we arrived at Phenomenon as com- 
plete sphere of appearance ? The ground catego- 
ries explained that identity and difference are 
phases of one and the same negative self-relation. 
Such negative self-relation is ground and grounded ; 
condition and conditioned. And inasmuch as it is 
the totality of conditions it is the unconditioned 
also. Essence as this negative self -relation which 
includes identity or immediateness, and difference 



THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 339 

or mediation, includes for the same reason both 
dependence and independence. For the media- 
tion, the presupposing reflection, the positing of 
difference, is the manifestation of dependence 
{Gesetzt-seyn). It is the reflection-out-of -itself. 

On the other hand the immediateness, the posit- 
ing of identity, is the manifestation of independ- 
ence. It is the reflection-into-itself. 

Both of these are in one movement of self -rela- 
tion of the negative. Hence Hegel {Encyclopedia 
I. § 123) defines existence as "the immediate 
unity of the reflection-into-itself and the reflection- 
into-another." Essence is existence or existing 
thing because it has the form of identity or inde- 
pendent stability and yet it has relation to others 
and dependence, and is the appearance of an un- 
derlying reality. 

THIKG. 

Thing contains these contradictory characteris- 
tics of dependence and independence. We express 
them by the terms thing and its properties 
{Eigenschaften) . 

The dialectic of this is given quite fully in the 
second division of the chapter on Perception in 
the Phenomenology. In Chapter IV. of this volume 
we have outlined the argument, and it is unneces- 
sary to repeat it here, Suffice it to- say that the 
concept of thing undertakes to grasp together and 
reconcile the contradictory elements of unity and 
multiplicity, (of reflection-into-itself and reflection- 
into-another) by the sta£ic notion of a quiescent 



340 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

tliing-in-itself and sphere of relativity raying out 
as a multiplicity of properties. The conception is 
not a tenable one and hence the mind takes a for- 
ward step to the dynamic basis and explains in a 
more adequate manner this unity of incompatible 
ideas by the concept of force. Force is the explicit 
unity of being-in-itself and being-for-others, just as 
thing is the implicit unity of these opposed 
ideas. 

In the same chapter (above referred to — Chapter 
IV. of this volume) we have already given a sum- 
mary of Hegel's dialectic treatment of force, which 
renders it unnecessary to analyze the discussion in 
the large logic, as may be seen by inspection. But 
there is a discrepancy between the exposition in 
the Phenomenology and that in the large logic in 
respect to the category of law. In the logic it is 
placed before the concept of force, in the Pheno- 
menology, after it. Here again it is a question of 
words and of the history of their use. If we take 
law in the sense that it brings together in one con- 
cept the system of forces and their incitements or 
occasions of activity, we may make it stand for a 
higher concept than force — for a thought closely 
allied to the thought of self-activity as mind. But 
if we consider the unconscious way in which the 
expression law is used — as a mere formula or rule 
of action, entirely omitting the idea of energy — we 
should place it below the dynamic idea and next 
to the category of thing as is done in the large 
logic. 

The small losric, it should be noted, inserts the 



THE CATEG0KY OF CAUSALITY. 341 

category of content and form in this place where 
in the large logic occur the categories of "law" 
and "phenomenal and noumenal worlds.'" Thus 
Hegel made these a transition from thing to force. 
His justification lies in the fact that the naive, un- 
conscious use of these terms does take them in a 
semi-static, semi-dynamic sense; while a thoughtful 
use of them may just as well take them as involv- 
ing the pure dynamic and its annulment. Form 
and content may also be taken as a ground cate- 
gory, as we have seen. 

"The relation of the internal to the external" is 
placed again after the discussion of force, as it is 
in the Phenome?iology, but not in connection with 
the category of law. 

Force, we saw, (Chapters IV. and Y. of present 
volume) contains the idea of original and independ- 
ent energy and also the contradictory idea of de- 
pendence on an external incitement as necessary 
for its action — the force never acts except when an 
occasion comes to it from without and "solicits" 
it to action. This led to the concept of a total 
system of forces in which the energy is self-active 
— not merely original source of force, but also its 
own incitement. 

There are three ideas or categories that form the 
transition to the explicit idea of self-activity 
(Begriff), namely, substantiality, causality, and re- 
ciprocal action. These are categories in which the 
idea of self-activity is more explicit than in the 
category of force and law, and yet not explicit 
enough to answer for the expression of any form of 






342 hegel's logic. 

self -activity. These three categories form the 
third part of essence as the union of "essence as 
reflection into itself" and "phenomenon." The 
reader of Hegel need not be reminded that such a 
union means a new thought which contains expli- 
citly both of the former ideas. The general rubric 
of this third part is actuality ( Wirklichkeif) and it 
contains reflection-into-itself and is at the same 
time phenomenal. It is that which manifests or 
reveals its entire internality. 

ACTUALITY. 

Actuality as just now mentioned contains the 
three sub-categories of substance, cause and recip- 
rocal-action. It is in the first place absolute. The 
idea of the absolute is according to Hegel the 
union of the idea of internality with that of exter- 
nality. The absolute is that whose internal is also 
external — and substance and cause must be such 
absolutes. 

How did we get to this idea ? We saw in the 
discussion of force that the system of forces radi- 
ated from a self-repelling energy which was its own 
incitement to act. Its internal immediately re- 
pelled itself from itself as external and its external 
immediately attracted its opposite and became 
internal. 

All duality has disappeared in the sense of de- 
pendence on some outside incitement to act. 
Hence we have the absolute or the independent. 
If the internal were not also external, there would 
be an essence which was not manifested, and 



THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 343 

hence, an essence that was not fully essential. For 
the essence proves itself to be essence in its phe- 
nomenon. 

Now the absolute is independent existence or 
true reality — called here Actuality (Wirklichkeifi) . 
Actuality is discussed by Hegel under the three 
aspects of contingency, relative necessity, and abso- 
lute necessity. Contingency maybe called "for- 
mal actuality," and relative necessity may be called 
"real actuality," as Hegel calls them here, or 
Kant's expressions may be used : (a) possibility, 
(Mogliclikeit), (u) existence (Daseyn), (c) necessity. 
Necessity is the unity of real and formal actuality 
(Hegel) or the union of possibility and existence 
(Kant). That is to say, when all of the possible 
phases are real or in existence at once, the form as- 
sumed is necessary and cannot change any farther 
because there are no potentialities into which it 
may change. 

This important idea of the necessary form of the 
Absolute will attract our attention, and we pause 
over these two chapters before proceeding to the 
final chapter of Essence — that devoted to the three 
sub-categories of actuality. 

But the question may reasonably be asked of 
Hegel why he did not treat of the absolute and its 
true form of necessity as the first part of the third 
volume — that on Begriff. For it is evident that 
no absolute or true necessity or adequate actuality 
can be found within the sphere of essence. On 
the other hand, Hegel can reply : Very good; the 
concept of "absolute" and " necessary " is reached 



344 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

before the concept of the only true being which 
can be subsumed under it, namely, the Mind, But 
it is used nevertheless, and used to found the doc- 
trine of fatalism and pantheism. I am, therefore, 
justified (he would say), in treating the idea here by 
itself. Especially too because a widely extended 
adoption of the philosophy of Spinoza has fixed 
this standpoint outside that of self -activity. " Sub- 
stance as opposed to subject " is a good characteri- 
zation of the two standpoints of essence and idea. 

Substance is independent being, but conceived 
as static rather than active, and hence it is a 
thought which does not permit any adequate justi- 
fication of it as the true actuality. It is pure being 
which is pure naught. 

Activity must be its principle. The attributes 
of the substance cannot be unless they are modes 
of its activity. The true substance must be self- 
active. 

This leads us to the idea of Cause — to that which 
is self -active. But Ci Cause " does not name ade- 
quately the self-active, it is in fact only the first 
or immediate form of seizing the thought. 

CAUSALITY. 

The cause can originate movement. The ordi- 
nary common-sense presupposes this nucleus of 
self-activity in its idea of cause, and especially 
when it speaks of the Great First Cause as it does 
when talking religiously. But in analytic think- 
ing it struggles to avoid this thought of original 
source of energy by making all manifestations of 






THE CATEGOEY OF CAUSALITY. 345 



causality relative. This is an effect of that ; that 
is an effect of something else; et cetera, et cetera, 
in infinite series. Since Kant published his Critique 
of Pure Reason, exhibiting the antinomy of caus- 
ality, it has been customary to suppose that the 
proof of a First Cause is fallacious. This proof 
had come down from Plato and Aristotle ( Laivs, 
Book X.; Metaphysics, XL, 7) and had formed the 
vital nerve of all pure theology. Hence the disas- 
ter to speculative thought, if it could really be 
shown that causality does not presuppose an origi- 
nal cause. 

It is clear too that Hegel's system would have 
no basis whatever to stand upon if causality does 
not presuppose causa sui, as we have shown in 
Chapter XII. of this volume and elsewhere. 

Eef erring the reader to Chapters XII. and XIII., 
let us briefly restate the analysis of the idea of 
causality which refutes the Kantian critique and 
re-establishes the Aristotelian and Christian inter- 
pretation. 

THE ESSENCE OF THE CAUSAL-RELATION. 

The cause is conceived as active and only as ac- 
tive. Its action produces an effect on something- 
else. It sends a stream of influence to an effect. 
This involves the idea of self -separation. For the 
cause separates this influence and transmits it of 
its own energy, and not because impelled to do this 
by some alien energy or cause. That alien energy 
which impelled the transmission would in that case 
be the true cause. But the true cause would still 



346 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

be that which separated from itself and transmit- 
ted to another some influence which worked a mod- 
ification in that other and thus "caused an effect." 
The cause by itself in the act of self-separation is 
and must be a self-activity — that which determines 
itself. Hence causa sui is the nucleus of each 
and every causal act. 

The antinomy arises through the supposed ne- 
cessity of separating the cause from the effect and 
of always conceiving the same as two independent 
things. The cause which produces this effect is 
itself an effect of a cause lying beyond it in some- 
thing else; that cause in something-else is also an 
effect of still another, and so on to infinity. 

This is a statement of the antinomy. But the 
law of causality would itself break down altogether 
unless it were asserted in the first place that this 
effect before us has a real cause existing. Without 
a real cause it is no real effect, but only a supposed 
effect. But if its cause is real it must exist either 
directly in another or somewhere else in the series 
which is set up by the antinomy, or finally beyond 
and transcending the series. One of these three 
hypotheses must be true or else the supposed effect 
is no effect. 

Hence we see that the infinite series invented to 
postpone indefinitely our arrival at a true cause, 
collapses entirely. For the Kantian must be forced 
to discriminate between efficient cause and its 
transmitting links. If he says that the cause of 
this phenomenon is itself only an effect of another 
cause, he must admit that it is not a cause, but 



THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY. 347 

only a transmitting link, and hence itself a part of 
the totality of the effect. So his whole series be- 
comes one transmitting chain which is a part of 
the total effect and not -in any sense an original 
cause. Hence if there is not a first or ade- 
quate cause there is none whatever, and the effect 
is not an effect, nor is the chain a transmitter, for 
it does not receive anything to transmit. 

Once admit, therefore, that there is an effect, we 
are forced to admit that there is a true cause, which 
is causa sui or self -active and self-determining. 

A true cause is subject and object of itself — 
subject as determiner, and object as determined. 






NECESSITY OR FATE. 



The standpoint of fatalism involved in substan- 
tiality may be refuted summarily, and the category 
of causality demonstrated, and through this the 
category of causa sui or self-activity, as follows : 
i (a) All things are necessitated to be what they are 
by the totality of conditions, (b) The changes in 
things, however, thus necessitated, imply that the 
totality of conditions has had corresponding 
changes within itself. For if a given state of 
things implies a given state of the totality of con- 
ditions necessitating it to be what it is, another 
state of things (the state preceding the present 
one) presupposes a different totality of conditions 
which necessitated that, (c) Hence the doctrine 
of necessity presupposes a change in the totality 
of conditions, which cannot have been necessitated 
by any being beyond it, for the precise reason that 



348 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

it is the totality. Hence the change in the totality 
of conditions is spontaneous or self-determined 
and not necessitated. 

This " dialectic " of necessity proves that sub- 
stantiality presupposes self-activity as a superior 
and including category. Freedom contains neces- 
sity, but necessity does not contain freedom. 

Causality presupposes self-separation, self-activ- 
ity. Its defect is that the category is used without 
seeing its implication — cause is not an explicit 
category of self-activity, but is rather what presup- 
poses it. This presupposition we have now arrived 
at as the content of the third and last volume of 
the logic. 

Reciprocal action as a transition from causality 
to idea explains in another manner the dialectical 
evolution of self-determination from determina- 
tion through another. 

Let A be the cause of some effect, namely B. 

Let B react on A, or in other words, be the oc- 
casion of the activity of the cause A. 

Then A determines B and B determines A again. 
Thus there is reciprocal action, and A determines 
B to determine A again, or in short, A determines 
itself through B, and B determines itself through 
A. (See "Introduction to Philosophy" — Jour. 
Spec. Phil., Vol. II., page 52. II. 2,(b) — where I 
gave my own deduction of this in 1868). 

Reciprocal action is therefore the last form of 
duality by which the thinking of the understand- 
ing is able to postpone the adoption of the form of 
thinking of the reason which sees self-activity as 
the ultimate presupposition of all. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE FORMAL LOGIC — NOTION" AKD JUDGMEXT. 

IN the third volume of this logic, Hegel gives 
his theory of the syllogism, making it the 
form of reason itself, and therefore the funda- 
mental form of real being in the world. It is the 
form of true being — that is to say, of self-deter- 
mined being or self -activity, which we have found 
to be the ultimate presupposition of all the cate- 
gories of being and essence. 

As I have pointed out in another connection 
(Chap. V.) the use of the expression Begriff, or- 
dinarily translated notion or concept, is unfortu- 
nate and misleading. If he had called this third 
part person or personality, the student would have 
seen the drift of the entire system on his first ap- 
proach to it. 

We saw (Chaps. IV.-V.) in his "Voyage of Dis- 
covery " that he arrived at the thought of spon- 
taneous self-opposition as the presupposed origin 
of force. He identified this with the Ego, and 
named the result self-consciousness, because con- 
sciousness or the first stage of knowing, in its 
effort to understand the objective world before it, 
had found that sense-impressions gave us only 
properties or accidents, which Ave must unite into 
objects under the concept of things; next the con- 

349 



350 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

tradiction of oneness and multiplicity involved in 
thing had to be explained by bringing in the idea 
of force ; finally force was found to presuppose 
self-activity or "self-opposition of the homony- 
mous and the self-attraction of the heterony- 
mous." Consciousness had recognized this self -ac- 
tivity as precisely its own form — the form of the 
ego. Inasmuch as the ultimate truth of the ob- 
jective is thus proved to be the Ego, consciousness 
recognizes itself in the object and becomes self- 
consciousness. 

The form of self-activity, being that of self-op- 
position and of identification in the opposite, is 
essentially that of Begriff, or logical conception, 
and hence Hegel gives this name to true being. 
But ordinary common sense sharply discriminates 
the act of forming concepts from real being. It 
regards the concept as merely subjective and with- 
out objective validity. But Hegel means by Be- 
griff ox notion not some particular general notion — 
for example, animal, man, horse or ship — but the 
one mental activity involved in all special acts of 
conception. The notion means accordingly the form 
of self -activity itself and not any special product 
of such action. For Begriff substitute Icli or Ego 
or Me, and we avoid the misapprehension that is 
so common in construing this system of thought. 

To quote our author himself (III. 13) and show 
that he explicitly states this identity of Begriff 
with Ego: "The notion (Begriff) in so far as it 
exists in its own form purely (insofern er ztt einer 
soldier Existenz gedielien ist ivelche selbst frei ist) 



THE FORMAL LOGIC. 351 

[i. e., not imprisoned- in. lower forms of nature, 
rocks, trees and animals, but in its own free form], 
is nothing else than an ego or pure self-conscious- 
ness. We have, to be sure, notions (Begriff e), that 
is to say, particular concepts (bestimmte Begriffe), 
but the ego is the pure Begriff itself, that which 
has come to reality as Begriff [as an activity of 
thinking concepts]." 

This activity of thinking or concept-making 
constitutes the nature of the Ego. It has, in the 
first place, three phases — universality, particular- 
ity and individuality. The pure Ego, with its 
negative power of abstracting from any and all 
special thoughts in such a manner as to empty 
itself of all contents, gives us first the category of 
Universality — the possibility of all, but the reality 
of none. This category is the pure self-identity 
expressed in the formula, A is A, or ego is the 
ego. 

But the form of self -activity is, as Hegel calls 
it, " negative self -relation," or self-opposition, and 
this is determination and Particularity. Its neg- 
ativity appears in the forms of limitation, other- 
ness, difference, contrast, contradiction. But the 
total realm of this expression of difference is only 
the exhaustive revelation of the negative activity 
which by itself is universality. Hence, the two 
are identical. Moreover, the negative manifesta- 
tion in all the limits and differences is the act of 
the one individual immanent in the particular, 
and thus forming a system. Individuality is the 
identity of particularity and universality. If 



352 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

we see the truth of particularity, we see the im- 
manence of the universal, we see Individuality. 

According to the method of this logic we must 
expect first, some immediate forms of Begriff (or 
notion) which are imperfect and lead us on by 
the dialectic towards higher forms. Accordingly 
we have first an unfolding of the subjective nature 
or the constitution of the Ego in the forms of the 
judgment and syllogism. 

JUDGMENTS. 

Since the notion is self-activity or self-determin- 
ation it is subject as determining and object as de- 
termined. There is this primordial diremption 
within it which Hegel identifies as the judgment 
( Urtlieil, signifying, etymologically, primitive di- 
vision). As subject, we have seen, it is universal, 
or the possibility of all determinations, while the 
result of the self-determining (i. e., the self as de- 
termined) is the particular. This combination of 
two phases, which is the primitive distinction 
within self-activity, is therefore universal and par- 
ticular. But since the combination is an act of 
identification (for the self determines the self) it 
is a twofold act involving subsumption and specifi- 
cation. First, as the universal is determined and 
made particular by the act, the subject is made 
specific by the predicate — the self is limited or de- 
termined. Secondly, as the limitation or specifi- 
cation is derived from the universal and developed 
out of it by its act, it is identified with the univer- 
sal. Hence, there is both limitation and the ne- 






THE FORMAL LOGIC. 353 

gat ion of limitation involved in the judgment. 
The subject is limited by the predicate and the 
predicate is universalized, so to speak, by the sub- 
ject. For the affirmation of the predicate identi- 
fies it with that which is unlimited possibility of 
predicates, namely, the self. 

When this fundamental form of true being is 
used by the immature consciousness, immature 
because only partially conscious, it attributes the 
form of true being to mere shreds or scraps of true 
being. This misuse of the form of the judgment 
furnishes Hegel a graded series of forms of judg- 
ment, commencing with the shallowest use of it, 
and ending with the concretest and deepest. 
There are four of these: 

(1) The judgment of determinate being (Da- 
seyn)' y (2) the judgment of reflection; (3) the 
judgment of necessity; (4) the judgment of the 
notion (Begriff). 

I. The judgment of determinate being (Da- 
seyn) does not accomplish the work for which the 
judgment is intended. "In the subjective judg- 
ment we wish to see one and the same object in a 
twofold manner ; first as an individual actuality, 
and secondly in its essential identity, or in its no- 
tion, i. e., the individual elevated into its univer- 
sality, or, what is the same thing, the universal 
individualized in its actuality. The judgment 
that performs this is truth, because it is the har- 
mony of the notion and reality'' (III, 73). But 
the first form of judgment, that of determinate 
being, or the judgment of inherence, deals with 



354 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

immediate terms as if they were independent, and 
fails to express the mediation that constitutes the 
truth of the actuality. This judgment of inhe- 
rence has three forms : (a) The positive judgment 
asserts, first, that the individual is universal (I is 
U) — the rose is red. This asserts that the entire 
rose is identical with one of its properties, and 
that, too, an accidental property. But where the 
universal and individual are seized abstractly they 
cannot be truly united in a judgment, and, conse- 
quently, what is meant is different from what is 
said. If we say the rose is red, we mean that this rose 
under consideration is a red rose of the precise de- 
gree of redness that we behold. This gives us the 
second form — the individual is the individual, or 
the universal is the universal. But such judgments 
would be tautological. In fact, this form of judg- 
ment cannot express positively the truth. Nega- 
tively, it may do better. 

(i) The negative judgment denies identity be- 
tween the subject and a particular quality : the rose 
is not red. The immediateness is denied, and this 
is in so far correct, but it is inadequate, because it 
does not state the true mediation. 

(c) The infinite (indeterminate) judgment 
states or implies the incompatibility of the judg- 
ment of inherence with truth. The rose is not 
a whale ; (nor is it any other kind of fish). 
Neither is any individual identical with any kind 
of immediateness. The defect remaining in the 
infinite judgment is that it does not state the 
mediation. 






THE FORMAL LOGIC. 355 

2. The mediation is partially expressed in the 
judgment of reflection which uses such predicates 
as useful, mortal, perishable, happy, and such as 
imply an inference from a variety of grounds. To 
say "this object is useful/' implies a consideration 
of its nature and its adaptation to the exigencies 
of some other being — a quite complex procedure. 
The immediate is annulled, and becomes a mere 
"moment" of such a predicate. Judgments of 
reflection, according to Hegel, use such predicates 
as imply dependence of the immediate. Hence 
they state the truth of quality (i. e., its depend- 
ence) with some degree of adequacy as compared 
with judgments of inherence. 

Judgments of reflection are divided into three 
kinds : (a) The singular judgment "asserts that 
the individual is an essential universal ; but this 
particular individual cannot be an essential uni- 
versal, and hence the positive form of this judg- 
ment must be exchanged for the negative. . . . 
The negation appertains rather to the subject than 
to the predicate." The singular has, therefore, its 
truth in (i) The particular judgment. This asserts 
that some particular individuals are an essentially 
universal. But the essential cannot be quite ex- 
pressed by the particular, though " some " is better 
than a single one. Hence we have (c) The univer- 
sal judgment in which " All " is the subject. The 
totality not only can, but must, adequately express 
essential universality. " But since what appertains 
to all individuals of a species belongs through its 
nature to the species itself ... it forms the 



356 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

basis of a new variety of the judgment which is 
more adequate than the judgment of reflection. 
This is the judgment of necessity." 

3. The judgment of necessity asserts what is 
substantially universal and appertaining to the na- 
ture of the entire process to which an individual 
belongs. There are three varieties of this form — 
categorical, hypothetical and disjunctive, (a) The 
categorical asserts a class of an individual — "the 
rose is a plant." All the properties that belong to 
the nature of plant in general will necessarily be- 
long to rose by virtue of this predication. The 
judgment of inherence asserts an accidental qual- 
ity of its individual — some predicate derived from 
immediate sense-perception, like red, sour, loud, 
fragrant, etc. The judgment of reflection asserts 
an essential predicate of its subject, expressing the 
subject's mediation or essential dependence on 
some other being. But still this is a single prop- 
erty or quality, although a synthesis of many imme- 
diate qualities and resting not on sense-perception 
but on inference. Useful, perishable, healthful, 
preferable, and such adjectives denote this subor- 
dination of sense-immediateness to ends outside 
of it ; but they in no wise exhaust the subject of 
the judgment. Under a different relation the 
same subject may be useless or permanent, or 
hurtful or objectionable. Hence the superiority 
of the judgment of necessity in its capacity of 
stating true being. The predicate being a class- 
name expresses a synthesis of all the essential 
qualities which experience has discovered to be- 



THE FORMAL LOGIC. 357 

long to the individual wherever it is found. But 
in the categorical judgment the reality of the sin- 
gle individual subject is assumed. It is something 
contingent, and hence incongruous in a judgment 
that expresses necessity. Consequently it should 
be corrected by an explicit statement of its de- 
pendence through hypothesis, (b) The hypothe- 
tic judgment therefore has its place dialectically 
following the categorical. It says/' If A is, it is 
necessarily B." "If this is a rose, it is necessarily 
a plant. " Here we have necessity better stated. 
But the self-limitation of the notion is not a vague 
indefinite one ; it exhausts itself in a definite 
number of possibilities. Hence the hypothetic 
statement is not so adequate- as the disjunc- 
tive. 

(c) The disjunctive judgment states all the pos- 
sible forms of the universal. A is either B, 0, or 
D. It only needs a negative mark to decide neces- 
sarily the class of the object before us. This indi- 
vidual is not A nor B nor C ; hence it is D. 

The idea of the totality of determinateness is of 
the highest importance. It leads directly to the 
nature of the notion itself. 

4. The judgment of the notion expresses in- 
sight into s^lf^determination and uses such predi- 
cates as good, true, beautiful, just, and such others 
as are founded on conformity to an ideal. This 
highest class of judgments has the following 
varieties: 

(a)- Assertorical judgments assume the reality 
and assert its conformity or non-conformity with 



358 hegei/s logic, 






the ideal— this house is ugly ; this act is right. 
But there is a condition to be fulfilled and the 
further statement of this condition changes the as- 
sertoric into the problematic, (i) "This act is 
right if it conforms to the law of justice " is a 
problematic judgment. 

Hegel points out that in this statement of the 
nature of the notion and of the requirements to be 
conrplied with by the real individual, the funda- 
mental division of the notion into its moments of 
universality and particularity appears — it is its 
primitive self-determination. Hence the apodictic 
judgment now appears as the highest form of ade- 
quacy. 

(c) " The apodictic judgment has in the first 
place an expression of the universal (the house,, 
thus and so built, is good ; the act, thus and so per- 
formed^ is just and right); the universal expresses 
the ideal (was es seyn soil); in the second place it 
states the actual characteristics (Beschaffenheit) of 
the subject ; this contains the reason why a predi- 
cate of the notion belongs or does not belong to 
the entire subject — whether the subject corres- 
ponds to its notion or not [/. e. whether the subject 
is self-active or not] " (III. p. 112). 

If the above delineation of HegePs exposition of 
the judgment is successful, the reader may see in 
what the dialectic that leads from one class of 
judgments to the next consists and how the sub- 
classes arise. Each one develops some special de- 
fect that requires to be corrected by the character- 
istic feature of the next higher class. The whole 






THE FORMAL LOGIC. 359 

proceeds from the most inadequate judgment to 
the most adequate, from the one that uses the 
form of the judgment with the least consciousness 
of its significance to the one that uses it with a 
complete sense of its high meaning. Only the 
notion as true self-active being — as conscious Ego, 
as concept-making being, in short — has the form 
of judgment or can bear that form without anni- 
hilation. Hence when naive, immature con- 
sciousness applies this form to all things in the 
world it produces nugatory judgments. 

Eosenkranz ( Wissenschaft der logischen Idee, 
Konigsberg, 1859, Bd. I. SS. 70-133) while follow- 
ing Hegel in his theory of these dialectic transi- 
tions has named the several classes more sugges- 
tively, adopting the hints of Kant. 

I. Inherence of quality ; (a) the positive ; (b) 
the negative ; (c) the limitative judgment. 

II. Subsumption of quantity ; (a) the singular ; 
(b) the particular ; (c) the universal judgment. 

III. Immanence of relation ; (a) the categori- 
cal ; (b) the hypothetical ; (c) the disjunctive 
judgment. 

IV. The modal judgment as the dissolution of 
the form of judgment and the transition into the 
syllogistic form ; (a) the assertorical ; (b) the prob- 
lematic ; (c) the apodictic judgment. 

Inasmuch as we are arrived at a form of judg- 
ment — that of the notion — which states the uni- 
versal and its mediation in the individual, we need 
now the syllogism with its three terms to express 
this more explicitly. 



CHAPTEE XXX. 

FORMAL LOGIC, CONTINUED — THE SYLLOGISM. 

"rilHE syllogism is the restoration of the notion 
-L in the judgment and consequently the unity 
and truth of the two. The notion as such con- 
tains its moments in a state of annulment [sup- 
pression, or undeveloped germinal condition]; in 
the judgment on the other hand this unity is 
something internal, or what is equiralent, external, 
and the moments are developed into independent 
extremes though ostensibly standing in relation 
to one another. But in the syllogism not only 
separate moments are posited like the extremes of 
the judgment, but the unity is posited quite as ex- 
plicitly" (III. p. 115). 

The syllogism has the tension of opposites in it 
and also the unity that comes from perfect iden- 
tity. It is therefore the adequate realization of 
the form of self-activity as subject. " The syllo- 
gism is rational (vernunftige) and everything 
rational is a syllogism." 

An inventory of its actual realizations will of 
course begin with the most inadequate specimens, 
mere caricatures, so to speak, and proceed dialec- 
tically by pointing out the corrections necessary to 
the perfect realization of the syllogistic ideal. 
Hegel accordingly classifies his syllogisms in the 

360 












THE FORMAL LOGIC. 361 

same manner and on the same ground as he classi- 
fied judgments into (a) those of determinate be- 
ing ; (b) those of reflection ; (c) those of neces- 
sity. 

Deduction of the Syllogistic Figures. 

The first figure alone according to Aristotle is 
perfect because/* it requires nothing else beyond 
the premises for the necessary consequence to 
appear : " 

All men are animals. 

Socrates is a man. 

Hence Socrates is an animal. 

First there is the major extreme., the term ani- 
mals, which is the universal. Then there is the 
minor extreme man, which is in relation to animal 
a particular, for it includes only some animals, and 
not all. Then there is the individual Socrates, who 
is in the class man and consequently in the includ- 
ing class animal. Aristotle enumerates, besides 
this perfect syllogism, two other figures which are 
imperfect because "they require one or more 
things which are necessary through the terms sup- 
posed, but which (necessary things) have not been 
expressly stated in the premises as given." The 
second figure is of this sort : 

Major premise : All men are animals. 

Minor premise: Xo trees are animals. 

Conclusion: No trees are men. 

In the first figure the middle term man is sub- 
ject in the major premise and predicate in the 
minor. In the second figure the middle is predi- 
cate in both premises. 



362 hegel's logic. 

There is another "imperfect" figure, the third, 
in which the middle term is subject in both pre- 
mises : 

Major : Men are animals. 

Minor : Men are rational. 

Conclusion : Some rational beings are animals ; 
or some animals are rational beings. 

These are the three Aristotelian figures. A 
fourth has been added (attributed to Galen, 200 
A. D.) which amounts to an inversion of the first 
figure. In it the middle term is predicate of the 
major and subject of the minor. 

The significance of these figures as primordial 
forms of internality or subjectivity cannot but 
have the highest interest. In what way do they 
function in the several forms of self -activity, 
plants, animals, and men ? We should expect to 
find each figure playing an essential role in some 
one or more provinces of self-activity and es- 
pecially in that of mind. The figures ought to be 
the clew to the most important distinctions of 
psychology. But the history of logic does - not 
mention any thinker who has made this observa- 
tion before Hegel. 

Hegel's treatment of formal logic must not be 
criticised from the standpoint of Aristotle and the 
logic of the schools. To appreciate it we must 
concentrate our attention on the differences of 
these figures and their mutually supplementary 
character. The first figure demands the second to 
prove its minor premise and the third to prove its 
major. "Socrates is a man. " This is proved by 









THE FORMAL LOGIC. 363 

the second figure which identifies or recognizes. 
We concentrate our attention on some attribute of 
the object, Socrates, before us and this attribute 
suggests to us the class man, inasmuch as it is a 
predicate of that class. 

Major: This Socrates is talkative and ra- 
tional. 

Minor : Men are talkative and rational. 

Conclusion : l Hence Socrates is a man. 

We can see that this is only a probable conclu- 
sion, its degree of probability rising towards cer- 
tainty in proportion as the middle term contains 
all the characteristics of humanity and in particu- 
lar those not shared by other beings. If talkative- 
rational belongs to man alone of all beings the 
conclusion is necessarily true, though its form is 
not valid. It should say : 

1. Men are the only beings that are talkative 
and rational. 

2. Socrates is a talkative and rational being. 

3. Hence Socrates is a ma,n. 

(All valid modes of the second figure draw nega- 
tive conclusions, the above specimen of an affirma- 
tive is made so by quantification of the predicate, 
the word only making the major premise equiva- 
lent to "all talkative-rational beings are men/' 
and thus reducing the second figure to the first 
figure). 

The major premise/* all men are animals/' re- 
quires the third figure to prove it. There must be 
induction of all individual men and the recogni- 
tion in them of the characteristic traits of the class 



364 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

animal. In the example of the well-known syllo- 
gism, "All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; 
hence Socrates is mortal ; " we have in the major 
premise a statement of general experience. Its 
proof is an appeal to experience. The middle 
term of the syllogism of experience is the indi- 
vidual object and hence it is the third figure. 

1. These individuals, a, b, c, and so on to the 
end of our observation, are men. 

2. All these individuals enumerated are mortal. 

3. Hence all men (as enumerated) are mortal. 
Inasmuch as the major premise of the first 

figure is proved by the third figure, Hegel changes 
the order of the figures and makes this Aristo- 
telian third his own second figure and the Aristo- 
telian second his third. 

The three terms of every syllogism — universal, 
particular and singular — are ascertained by asking 
the questions : 

1. Which is the most inclusive, which subsumes 
both the others ? (The answer to this gives us the 
universal or major term). 

2. Which is subsumed under both the others ? 
(The answer gives us the individual). 

The particular is that which contains some (but 
not all) of the universal. 

These terms are symbolized as U, P, I, or uni- 
versal, particular, individual. Hegel uses the let- 
ters A (Attgemeine, universal), B (Besondere, par- 
ticular), E (Einzelne, individual or singular). 



THE FOKMAL LOGICS 365 

1. Syllogism of determinate being or quality. 

This, like the judgment of the same name, deals 
only with immediateness and is defective on that 
account. It does not express the essential media- 
tion of its terms. Some accidental property is 
taken as the middle term, or if some essential 
characteristic, this is taken in its shallow aspect. 

On this feature of the imperfection of the syllo- 
gism of immediateness Hegel bases its dialectic. 

The defect of the first figure taken immediately, 
is that the middle term as an immediate is inde- 
pendent and needs a new mediation with each of 
the extremes as much as they need with one 
another. Moreover, the singular is any possible 
immediate object and the particular is any one of 
its properties or relations, the universal being 
another property or relation that is more general. 
Hence different conclusions may be drawn ad 
infinitum by using different middle terms. 

Predicates derived from sense-perception do not 
permit a syllogism of the genuine type because 
their content is not that of self -activity or self- 
mediation. Inasmuch as the premises do not con- 
tain self-mediation, they stand in need of it, and 
hence the first figure needs to have both its pre- 
mises proved. As above stated the first figure re- 
quires the third Aristotelian figure to prove its 
major premise, which asserts that all of the middle 
term is or is not the universal (all P is U). 

The individual is the bond that connects the 
particular and general and is the middle term as 
subject in both premises in the third figure so- 




366 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

called. This figure makes a mediation for its in- 
dividuals and thereby produces general classes ; 
or rather it makes genera and species by sub- 
dividing more general classes. 

The first figure mediates or exhibits the relation 
of I to II (individual and universal) by means of P 
(particular). By the second figure the mediation 
is made between P and U by means of I. The 
mediation left to be made is that between I and P^ 
and this is the function of the second figure. 

The middle term must be predicate in both pre- 
mises of the second figure because it is the univer- 
sal,, and subsumes both of the other terms (I and 
P). In the third figure it had to be the subject 
in both premises because it is subsumed by the 
other two terms (P and U). The dialectic that 
leads to this second figure from the third is the 
circumstance that the latter annuls immediate- 
ness by showing its dependence and unity with 
others. The total contains the elements as an- 
nuled and hence as indifferent and hence in their 
universality. 

The dialectic by which the first figure led to the 
third, is the circumstance that the individual is 
affirmed in the minor premise as the particular 
and in the conclusion as the universal. Hence as 
comprehending both it is the middle or connection 
that needs positing expressly in a new figure 
that makes I instead of P, its middle term. 

In the second figure both of its premises (I — U 
and P — U) have been proved (the former in the 
first and the latter in the second figure). Its 






THE FOKMAL LOGIC. 367 

function is to mediate I with P and this being 
done all the essential relations of the syllogism 
have been exhibited. Each term has been medi- 
ated with the others. 

Hegel points out (III. 134) that in the second 
figure, since its major premise must be converted 
(P — U must be changed to U — P), and this can be 
done only negatively, it does not make any differ- 
ence which of the two premises is taken for the 
minor or which for the major. Hence a new fig- 
ure of the syllogism is reached dialectically, the 
fourth, in which is expressed the empty indiffer- 
ence of all the terms. They may be all XJ — II — U 
or I — I — I. This is the mathematical syllogism 
in which there is no subsumption but only quanti- 
tative equality. Two quantities equal to a third 
are therefore equal to each other. The conven- 
tional fourth figure ( Galen's) is not to be taken 
as an equivalent of HegeFs fourth. In fact Hegel 
speaks of it with contempt. 

But this fourth figure reached by the dialectic 
is rather the demonstration of the exhaustiveness 
of the three figures. Their self-mediation leads to 
the indifference — each term has been mediated 
and become a totality. Hegel therefore proceeds 
to consider a higher order of syllogisms, the syllo- 
gisms of reflection wherein both premises express 
mediation. 

2. The Syllogisms of Reflection. 

In the syllogisms of reflection we have the quan- 
titative aspect accentuated as all, some, and one. 






368 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 






In the syllogisms of determinate being or quality 
the accent was laid on the inherence or mediation. 
Here it is laid upon the quantity, as showing ex- 
plicitly how much mediation has already been ac- 
complished; the object of the syllogism is to show 
what necessary inferences can be made. 

First there is the syllogism of all-ness (AUheit) 
in which there is stated the results of previous in- 
duction — " All men are mortal/' etc. Then next 
comes the explicit statement of the process of ar- 
riving at this "all-ness."" Hence, secondly, there is 
the syllogism of induction, wherein the middle 
term is I and the form of the whole is U — i+i+ 
i-j-etc., — P, or the universal is divided into sub- 
classes through inventorying the individuals com- 
posing it, and classifying them by a new charac- 
teristic. For example, we take the universal term 
eagle and inventory its individuals as either white- 
headed or otherwise. 

But inasmuch as the universals derived from ac- 
tual inventory are not pure but limited universals, 
and true only so far as observation has extended, 
they have their truth in the principle of anal- 
ogy- 

The syllogism of analogy is accordingly the 
third species under this head of reflection. On 
the ground of what is already known it is inferred 
that the unknown is likely to be of the same char- 
acter. But analogy strictly speaking takes the in- 
dividual in two senses — as individual and as uni- 
versal. The earth is inhabited, the moon being an 
earth is likely to be inhabited also. The earth is 






THE FORMAL LOGIC. 369 

taken as the actually inhabited earth that we 
know, and also as the general type of all planets. 
This general sense is the basis of the inference. 
Its form is I — U — P. But the ambiguity of the 
middle term (which however Hegel defends 
against the charge of quaternio terminorum) leads 
to the demand for an explicit universal as the 
basis for the necessary conclusions which the 
syllogism ought to mediate. 

3. The Syllogisms of Necessity, 

The syllogism 01 analogy has its truth in the 
syllogisms of necessity. The first of these is the 
categorical syllogism which should have its pre- 
mises assert objective universality. But since the 
assertion of this implies the categories of substan- 
tiality and causality, a more explicit form of the 
syllogism is found in the hypothetical, which is the 
second form. The hypothetical asserts the neces- 
sary dependence of its minor premise on the ma- 
jor. There bemg given some contingent existence, 
it follows by presupposition that there is a causal 
process to account for it. This principle of pre- 
supposition is the key to the method of speculative 
philosophy. Instead of investigating and inven- 
torying contingent existences it proceeds to infer 
the general grounds and conditions of such exist- 
ence as it finds. But the hypothetical is defective 
on account of the accidental character of its as- 
sumed realities. This can be corrected by making 
an exhaustive inventory of the field of the contin- 
gent. Then we may have the disjunctive syllo- 
gism. 



370 HEGEL'S LOGIC, 






The highest form of all syllogisms is therefore 
the disjunctive, which in its major premise recites 
the concrete totality of the parts or divisions of 
the universal (U is a, or b, or c, or d, etc.), and 
in the minor premise asserts the actual limitation 
of possibility (U is a, or U is not b, c, or d, etc.), 
and draws its necessary conclusion. 

With this we have a syllogism of which the 
terms II, I, and P are no longer abstract and 
mutually excluding, but each is completely un- 
folded so that each is a mediation of itself through 
all the others and a syllogism of syllogisms is the 
result. The three great divisions of syllogisms 
have typical forms of which I — P — U is that of 
quality or inherence — the particular being the 
prevailing middle term and deduction the chief 
process ; TJ — I — P is that of reflection (or sub- 
sumption of quantity) — the individual being the 
middle term, and induction the prevailing process ; 
I — U — P is that of necessity — the universal in its 
concrete self-unfolding being the middle term and 
derivation of the individual specimen from the 
general process being the chief operation. 

The insight of the disjunctive syllogism is that 
of the necessary objectification of the self-active 
being — it sees how the self-active is universal, par- 
ticular and singular, all at once, and a living pro- 
cess of mind and will. 

Hegel therefore considers himself to have ar- 
rived by the dialectic of subjectivity at objectivity. 
In other words, he sees that an adequate concep- 
tion of the Begriff or self -activity brings us to un- 



THE F0BMAL LOGIC. 371 

derstand how the totality of the subject must be 
also the totality as object. In the next chapter we 
shall take up this objectivity, first in its simplest 
form as mechanism, and follow Hegel as he traces 
it upward to complete subject-objectivity in the 
absolute personal idea, the ultimate conclusion of 
this logic. 

HEGEI/S SYLLOGISM AND PSYCHOLOGY. 

The suggestiveness of Hegel's study of formal 
logic is inexhaustible, but his actual exposition is 
only an epitome of the views that opened before 
him. 

Having followed out through a number of 
years the study of the significance of the three fig- 
ures in sense-perception, taking my hint from his 
discussion above outlined, I offer the following as 
a sketch of my results. 

Hegel starts with the first figure and then pro- 
ceeds to the third and from the third to the sec- 
ond. I find that sense-perception begins with the 
second figure, and next uses the first, and finally 
the third. It performs first an act of identifica- 
tion or recognition of its object — if it be no more 
than the act of recognizing that it has an object — 
or an appearance of an object. It identifies feat- 
ure after feature in its object and by these feat- 
ures as predicates classifies it, descending from 
vague and general classes to sub-classes more and 
more specific. The moment that the object is 
classified it is placed in connection with all the 
stored-up previous experience in regard to it and 






372 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

this gives occasion for a re-enforced action of per- 
ception to verify various deductions made from 
the class in regard to the individual specimen be- 
fore it. If it is classified as a bird by some one 
characteristic, we look now for the other charac- 
teristics that it ought to have because it is a 
bird. 

Next after the use of the first figure, develops 
the use of the third figure unfolding new specific 
differences from the classes identified, and ending 
with the production of new sub-classes. For hav- 
ing the general class of the object and deducing 
all its characteristics we note others that do not 
belong to the definition of the class already predi- 
cated. By these we sub-divide the class and ar- 
rive at the definition of new possible varieties. 
For every individual taken as a type contains 
the marks of infinite possible sub-classes. 

Hegel has not indicated this psychological ap- 
plication of his doctrine of the figures, but his dis- 
cussion suggests it. 

If it is objected that the phases of identification, 
verification and specification which I have de- 
scribed as using respectively the second, first and 
third figures of the syllogism are all forms of the 
first figure and that there is no proof that we use 
any figure except the first, I would point out that 
Aristotle, and after him all logicians, have enumer- 
ated these three figures as actually in use even in 
conscious reasoning. I would suggest too that the 
fact that the imperfect syllogisms (the second and 
third figures) are all reducible to the first does not 



THE FORMAL LOGIC. 373 

prove that they are not used. They are used and 
used in sense-perception, though the consciousness 
of the form of inference is much more obscure than 
in the higher phases of mental activity. Percep- 
tion has usually been regarded as immediate and 
not capable of further analysis. This is the cap- 
ital error of psychology as it exists. 

Hegel pays no attention to the subject of the 
moods of the syllogism,, but uses only the typical 
forms without discriminating the valid from the 
invalid moods. This he did doubtless for the pur- 
pose of keeping the attention fixed upon the func- 
tion which the figures perform in realizing the 
content of the syllogism.* 

* There are four valid moods in the first figure— four moods in 
which a conclusion may be deduced with absolute certainty from 
the premises given. That is to say, if the premises are true in these 
four moods, the conclusion must be true. Letting S stand for the 
subject and P for the predicate of the conclusion, and M for the 
middle term, these are as follows : 

1. (a) All M are P ; (6) all S are M ; (c) hence all S are P. Illus- 
trating this symbolism: (a) all men are mortal (all M are P, or all of 
the middle term, men, are mortal, mortal being the predicate of the 
conclusion) ; (&) all Indians are men (all S are M, or all of the sub- 
ject of the conclusion, Indians, are men, the middle term) ; (c) 
hence all Indians are mortal (all S are P, all of the subject, Indians, 
are mortal, the predicate.) This mood is called Barbara. 

2. (a) No M are P ; (&) all S are M ; (c) hence no S are P. This 
mood is called Celarent. 

3. (a) All M are P ; (b) some S are M ; (c) hence some S are P. 
This is called Barii. 

4. (a) No M are P ; {b) some S are M ; (c) hence some S are not P. 
This is called Ferio. 

There are sixty-four moods possible in each figure, as one may 
see by calculating the permutations possible in three terms, each 
one of which has four possible forms. Each term, S, M, P, may be 
universal affirmative— all are (indicated in logic by the letter a) ; 
universal negation— none are (indicated by the letter e) ; particular 
affirmative— some are (indicated by the letter i) ; particular negative 



374 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

—some are not (indicated by the letter o). But of the sixty-four pos- 
sible moods in each figure only a few are valid or draw necessary 
conclusions. There are as seen above only four valid moods in the 
first figure; the same in the second figure; and six valid moods in 
the third figure. The following are the four valid moods of the 
second figure: 

1. Cesar e (a) No P is M ; (&) all S is M ; (c) hence no S is P. 

2. Camertres (a) All P is M ; (6) no S is M ; (c) hence no S is P. 

3. Festino (a) No P is M ; (b) some S is M ; (c) and hence some S 
is not P. 

4. Baroco (a) All P is M ; (&) some S is not M ; (c) hence some S 
is not P. 

There are six valid moods in the third figure, named respect- 
ively : 

1. Darapti— All M is P ; all M is S ; hence some S is P. 

2. Disamis— Some M is P ; all M is S ; hence some S is P. 

3. JJatisi— All M is P ; some M is S ; hence some S is P. 

4. Felapton— No M is P ; all M is S ; hence some S is not P. 

5. Bocardo— SomeM is not P; all M is S ; hence some S is not P. 

6. Ferison—'No M is P ; some M is S ; hence some S is not P. 

I add the following quotations from a discussion of the subject 
published by me elsewhere, in order to elucidate further the brief 
presentation made in the text. 

1. " Let us examine sense-perception and see what logical forms 
make themselves manifest. Take the most ordinary act of seeing; 
what is the operation involved there ? Is it not the recognition of 
something? We make out the object first as something in space be- 
fore us ; then as something limited in space ; then as something 
colored; then as something of a definite shape; and thus on until 
we recognize in it a definite object of a kind familiar to us. The 
perception of an object is thus a series of recognitions— a series of 
acts of predication or judgment: ' This is an object before me in 
space ; it is colored gray; it looms through the fog like a tree; no, 
it is pointed like a steeple ; I see what looks like a belfry ; I make 
out the cross on the top of the spire ; I recognize it to be a church 
spire.' Or, again: ' Something appears in the distance; it is mov- 
ing ; it moves its limbs ; it is not a quadruped ; it is a biped ; it is a 
boy walking this way ; he has a basket on his arm ; it is James.' 

" Notice what logical forms we have used. First, the act of rec- 
ognition uses the second figure of the syllogism. The second fig- 
ure says S is M ; P is M ; hence S is P ; or, in the case of sense-per- 
ception (a) this object (the logical subject) has a cross on the sum- 
mit of its spire— or is a cross-crowned spire; (b) church spires are 
cross-crowned; (c) hence this object is a church spire. 

"All sense-perception is a recognition of this sort: Something 
(an object before me) is something (an attribute or class which I 






THE FORMAL LOGIC. 375 



have known before). But this recognition takes place through some 
common mark or property that belongs to the object and to the 
well-known class— this mark or property being the middle term. 
Hence the judgment is grounded on other jndgments, and the 
whole act of sense-perception is a syllogism. The mind acts in the 
form of a syllogism, but is dimly conscious (or even quite uncon- 
scious) of the form in which it acts when it is engaged in sense-per- 
ception. I perceive that this is a church steeple. But I do not re- 
flect on the form of mental activity by which I have recognized it. 
If asked 'How do you know that it is a church steeple? ' then I 
elevate into consciousness some of the steps of the process and say : 
'Because I saw its cross-crowned pinnacle.' This implies a syllo- 
gism of the second figure : (a) Church spires have cross-crowned 
pinnacles; (6) this object has a cross-crowned pinnacle; (c) hence it 
is a church spire. But this is not a necessary conclusion — it is not a 
' valid mode ' of the second figure. The mind knows this, but is not 
conscious of it at the time. An objection may be raised which will 
at once draw into consciousness a valid mode. Let it be objected : 
'The object that you see is a monument in the cemetery.' The 
reply is: 'Monuments do not have belfries, but this object has a 
belfry.' Here sense-perception has noted a further attribute— the 
belfry. Its conclusion is simply negative. ' It is not a monument, 
because it has a belfry,' and it concludes this in a valid mode of the 
second figure, (a) No monuments have belfries ; (6) this object has 
a belfry; (c) hence it is not a monument. If the premises (a and b) 
are correct, the conclusion necessarily follows." 

iJ. " No sooner have I recognized and classified the object by one 
of its marks than I begin to look after the other marks which I have 
learned in my previous experience to belong to objects of its class. 
I recognize the object to be a church steeple by its cross crowned 
pinnacle, and begin at once to look for other characteristics of a 
church steeple, such as a belfry, for example. I also look for the 
well-known outlines of a spire, for the roof of the church to which 
it is united, and so on. 

" If the first step of the process of sense-perception is in the form 
of the second figure, the second step is in the form of the first fig- 
ure. By the second figure I have identified the object as a church 
spire. To classify is to refer the new object to what is well known. 
It is possible now to re-enforce the present perception by bringing 
to it all the stored-up treasures of experience. I begin at once to 
draw out of the treasure house of the general class a series of in- 
ferences : If it is a church spire it is likely to have a belfry — possi- 
bly a clock, a steep slope above, shingled with slate or wood, joined 
below to the body of the church at the ridge of the roof, or else at 
the corner of the edifice, etc., etc. Hence I look again and again, 
being now helped by my previous experience I collect much infor- 



376 HEGEl/s LOGIC. 



mation in a very short interval of time. The form of this second 
activity in the first figure is (a) M is P ; (&) S is M ; (c) S is P." 

3. ;i The activity of the second figure gives occasion to that of the 
first figure. The stored up experience leads to a number of antici- 
pations of perception, which are verified or tested. But, by what 
process do classes, species, genera, and all the universals which 
furnish the major premise of the first figure arise? The answer to 
this brings us to the third figure. 

41 The third figure necessarily comes into activity after the second 
and first figures. This will be obvious when we consider its nature. 
Its schema is : M is P, M is S, hence S is P; man is a biped, man is 
rational ; hence (some) rational being is a biped. Here man is the 
middle term, and it is the subject in both premises. 

"The third figure follows the first and second figures, and cannot 
precede their activity because each of its premises presupposes the 
action of identifying. The object M is S (S is recognized in the ob- 
ject). The object M is P (P is now recognized). Thus there are 
two identifications, one for each premise (both using the second 
figure of the syllogism), before the third figure can begin to 
function. 

" Xow it acts and connects the two phases of the object (S + P) 
making a new predication which may serve for a new major pre- 
mise of the first figure. Hereafter we may say: Such objects as 
those (M) are S + P and when we see one of this kind we may rec- 
ognize it in the second figure at once. 

" Let us suppose that our object before had been a well-known 
object — a black eagle. In a new object we recognize eagle and white- 
head by two acts of the second figure ; white-head (bald-headed) 
eagle makes a new class derived by the third figure. Hereafter, 
an object may be recognized as a white-headed (or bald-headed) 
eagle, by the second figure, and all its other peculiarities 
stored up in observation deduced by the first figure." 

4. " The ultimate consequences of this principle in psychology are 
important as touching the doctrine of the categories of the mind. 
Sense-perception uses these categories unconsciously. Reflection 
subsequently discovers their existence and finally their genesis. 
The fundamental act of mind, as self- determining, discriminates 
self from the special modification in which the self finds itself. 
The self is the general capacity for feeling, willing, knowing; but 
it is at a given moment determined as one of these, if not exclu- 
sively, at least predominantly. Every act of perception begins with 
identification (second figure). This is an act of removal of the 
special limitation from the object— a dissolving of it in the general 
self as a capacity for any and all sensation, volition, or thought. It 
is this first act that gives rise to the category of being, and the cate- 
gory of negation born with it, is next perceived. All other cate- 






THE FOKMAL LOGIC. 377 

gories arise from division of this most general of categories (sum- 
mum genus) . The third figure shows how these arise by progressive 
definition. The categories, in so far as they do not imply in their 
definition any properties derived from sense-perception, are called 
categories of pure thought or logic." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

OBJECTIVITY. 

IT has been pointed out already in this volume 
(Chaps. L, VIII.) that the point of difficulty 
in all philosophy is the explanation of the deriva- 
tion of the imperfect from the All-Perfect. The 
philosophy whose principle is a method (see Chap. 
IX.) — that is to say, whose principle is self-activ- 
ity^ which develops itself — explains the rise of 
the finite by the essential action of its principle. 
The contemplation of the principle is a contem- 
plation of an activity of creation. This is the 
meaning of that mysterious utterance that prin- 
ciple and method are one in this philosophy; 
also that thought and being are one. To con- 
sider the nature of a creative being is to consider 
its inward springs of creative action. Hence, 
Platonic thought had no sooner seen the necessity 
of intelligence and goodness in the divine first 
principle than it came at once upon the idea of a 
Logos eternally begotten, who in some way through 
his goodness was responsible for creating imper- 
fect beings that have independent self-action. 

Christian thinking, in the process of formulating 
the orthodox creed, especially in the writings of St. 
Athanasius and St. Hilary (and I think, too, with 
some defects in statement even in those of Arius 

378 






OBJECTIVITY. 379 



and Busebius of Nicomedia), arrived at a quite ade- 
quate insight into the ground of creation in the 
self-knowledge of the Logos. Knowledge being 
an objectifying, His self-knowledge is the objectifi- 
cation of himself. His knowledge of himself as 
He is, namely, as perfect, is the origin of a third 
perfect being, the Holy Spirit, but the knowledge 
of His eternally past begotteness makes objective 
His own derivation as a Processio, which is our 
world in time and space. 

That derivation of the Logos has been complete 
from all eternity, but it is, nevertheless, his logical 
presupposition, for he is related to the First only 
by this timeless act of derivation (or "genera- 
tion"). Hence, the contemplation of His deriva- 
tion is the contemplation of the goodness of the 
first principle, the unbegotten Father. The first 
principle in knowing Himself generates the Logos 
from all eternity. The Logos, in knowing his 
derivation, recognizes his origin in the self -know- 
ing of the first. But the first, too, recognizes the 
recognition of the second, and this mutual recog- 
nition is described in religious language as the 
mutual love which causes the Holy Spirit to pro- 
ceed eternally. In philosophical language it is 
mutual recognition, the knowledge of one's self in 
another. But the Processio is to be distinguished 
from the perfect being that proceeds, for the Pro- 
cessio is an evolution or becoming from that which 
is not to that which is and is perfect. Hence, it 
eternally contains all degrees of imperfection in it 
at all times. The Processio is, in fact, creation, 
and not God nor a person of the Trinity. But it 



380 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

has, as creation, unique relations to each of the 
divine Persons. To the First, it is the recogni- 
tion of his own process of generating through 
goodness or altruistic action ; to the Second, it is 
the recognition of another's goodness and altru- 
ism — namely, that of the First ; to the Third, it is 
a recognition of his own double procession through 
the altruism of First and Second. The creation in 
time and space is a process with one sole final pur- 
pose, the evolution of rational immortal souls, and 
their perfection in institutions (whose aggregate is 
the invisible church). The world is not divine, but 
it has a divine function to perform, because it is 
the Processio of the Holy Spirit.* 

* The reader of Dante will recall the opening of the tenth canto 
of the Paradiso, wherein he makes the mutual love of the First and 
Second the origin of the world— "The master who within himself 
loves the world (or stellar system) so that he never withdraws his 
gaze from it/' (X. 11, 12). 

"The first and ineffable Power, looking upon his Son with the 
love that is eternally breathed forth from both, created whatever 
moves before the mind and the eye ft. e. before the inward and the 
outward eyes] with such order [or dine i. e. marks of ordering intel- 
ligence] that whoever beholds this cannot avoid tasting that love 
[cannot avoid recognizing divine Reason in the world].' 1 X, 1-6. 

St. Thomas Aquinas (Sum. Theol. P I., Qu. xlv. Art. 6,) says: 

"The divine processions are the cause of the procession of 
things. Hence to create is an attribute of the divine Person. . . 
But the divine Persons have causality in respect to the creation of 
things according to the nature (rationam) of their procession. . . 

. . . Whence God made creation by His word which is the Son; 
and by His love which is the Holy Spirit." 

(xlv. 6-1) Processiones divinarum personarum sunt causa pro- 
cessionis rerum ; et sic creare est proprium personam, (xlv. 6-3). 
Sed tamen divinse personam secundum rationem suae processionis 
habent causalitatem respectu creationis rerum. . . Unde et Deus 
Pater operatus est creaturam per suum Verburn, quod est Filius; 
et per suum amorem, qui est Spiritus sanctus. 

The reader will note that Catholic theology connects creation 
with the Procession. 



OBJECTIVITY. 381 

I have often before alluded to this distinction of 
the Processio from the Second Divine Person, as 
the important thing neglected by Hegel — a neg- 
lect .that in some measure justifies the censure of 
pantheism that has been so freely cast upon him. 
It is not, however, with Hegel precisely as the 
charge has made it to be. Hegel does not in any 
wise fail in the proper characterization of the 
Third Person, nor in the doctrine of the invisible 
church and the "communion of saints." Free- 
dom and immortality in the most concrete sense 
are held by Hegel. The defect pertains to the 
conception of the nature of the Second Person. 
The Processio is taken for the Loo-os. Hence 
there is an implication that the First in knowing 
himself perceives in himself finitude originating 
and passing over into perfection. Eecognizing 
this in himself he at the same time creates it ; for 
his knowing is creating. "In God knowing and 
willing are one." But such recognition of the 
origin of finitude in himself implies a conscious- 
ness of a derivation (a begottenness) and this 
shows at once that Hegel has conceived the First 
as the Second. He has attributed to the Father 
the consciousness that belongs to the Logos. 

On this plane, too, the reader of this book must 
approach the topic of objectivity which is the 
dialectical outcome of subjectivity as exhibited in 
the exposition of the syllogism. The subject 
makes itself its own object. The syllogistic con- 
stitution of the Ego opposes itself in its complete- 
ness and independence to itself as object. This is 



382 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 






the nature of mind in itself ; it is the nature of 
the divine mind to do this: " creare est proprium 
personcv" says St. Thomas. 

That Hegel has this in view here I will show* by a 
quotation from the first page of his discussion of 
objectivity : 

"Self-activity (Begriff) determines itself as ob- 
jectivity. It is manifest that this new feature of 
its self-determination is the same thing that used 
to be called in the old metaphysic the ' syllogism 
of the Begriff/ namely, the ontological proof of 
the existence of God, which inferred his existence 
from the conception {Begriff) of him. It is well 
known that the sublimest thought of Descartes, 
namely, that God is that whose idea includes nec- 
essary being, has been laid aside since Kant," etc. 
(III. 167). 

He presents in detail his refutation of the Kant- 
ian objections to the Cartesian proof. With him 
the necessary presupposition (as we have seen) of 
all things, is self-activity in the form of Begriff, or 
subject-objectivity. Hence, God is precisely that 
necessary being presupposed by all, whose very na- 
ture implies objectivity. St. Anselm, who origin-^ 
ated the argument, said, in effect, that we could not 
avoid the thought of a totality — "the thought of 
that than which there can be none greater." For 
if we speak of ourselves as known and the object- 
ive universe as unknown, still we think a totality 
under the me and the not-me — the me and the not- 
me is necessarily all. The totality is the unity that 
underlies all thinking. It is the independent that 



OBJECTIVITY. 383 

includes the dependent as one of its moments. 
The Begriff is, then, Hegel's expression for the in- 
dependent being that everything presupposes as 
necessary. Its nature is to make itself an object of 
itself in the manner that we have seen in the discus- 
sion of the judgment and syllogism. To Hegel, 
therefore, the old proof of God from his idea or 
concept is full of deep meaning. 

" God as living God, and still more as absolute 

Spirit, is recognized only in his deed 

The scientific knowing comprehends him in his ac- 
tivity, i. e., in himself, and knows the concept of 
God in his being and his being in his concept (Be- 
griff)" (III. 169). 

" On the standpoint that we have now reached, 
objectivity has the meaning of the in and for itself 
being of Begriff — i. e., of the Begriff (notion) that 
has cancelled its mediation, posited through its 
self-determination and reached immediate self-re- 
lation" (III. 173). This objectivity has, as we 
should expect, three forms, the first being objectiv- 
ity undeveloped and devoid of subjectivity — 
namely, mechanism ; secondly, as objectivity in 
which subjectivity appears — law and ratio, and 
measure of differences — chemism ; thirdly, object- 
ivity in which subjectivity manifests itself as de- 
pendence on a purpose or aim — teleology. 

This brings us to the idea which may be defined 
as explicit subject-objectivity in the forms of life, 
intellect and will. 



384 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

1. Mechanism. 

The judgment, when perfected, posits its entire 
form in each of its terms ; the subject is the com- 
plete notion and the predicate is the complete 
notion, and their connection, the copula, also be- 
comes a judgment. With this the judgment has 
developed into the syllogism. 

The syllogism, again, when perfected, posits its 
mediation in each of its terms, and each becomes 
a total. Each of the three figures performs its 
function in proving some premise of another, and 
the result is a syllogism of syllogisms. 

The whole dialectic progress from being and 
naught to the syllogism has been of this charac- 
ter. The perfection of the whole develops itself 
in the parts, and the parts or moments grow to 
totalities, and this develops the form of the whole 
to a new and higher perfection. This is the prin- 
ciple of the Motion, and it is, as we have seen, 
also the dialectic method. With the development 
of the dependent moments into totalities there is, 
of course, the development of independence ; each 
moment becoming a reflection of the whole and 
containing all, it needs nothing. 

The independence of the perfected moments of 
quality produced quantity, each moment became a 
one and indifferent to others. Dependence of 
somewhat on another gave place to independence 
and indifference, because of completeness. 

So, too, actuality posited its perfection as causal 
activity. But at first its truth was sundered into 
partial terms, the cause having its effect on some- 



OBJECTIVITY., 385 

thing else, and the effect being void of causal ac- 
tivity, except so far as receiving it from others. 
Then each moment became total ; the cause also 
its own effect, and the effect its own cause. The 
category of causa sui thus arose, and this is the 
Notion. The notion is especially that form of 
being in which each of its moments is an indepen- 
dent and perfect totality, but at the same time 
each one is perfectly interpenetrated by all the 
others, and this constitutes personality. But its 
imperfect realizations as found in the judgments 
and syllogisms of immediateness and reflection do 
not display the notion adequately. The tension of 
subjectivity, opposed to objectivity, has to be over- 
come by the developing of each of the moments 
into an independent totality, as in the syllogism of 
syllogisms, and then we have a subject that is its 
own object, and an object that is its own subject. 
This is the idea. 

But if we take this independence and indiffer- 
ence of the moments abstractly, we have mere 
mechanism, and this is the first and lowest possible 
sub-category under objectivity. 

In mechanism each part is indifferent to every 
other. " This constitutes the character of mechan- 
ism that every relation of the parts combined is 
something foreign to them, which does not arise 
from their own nature ; the unity of the parts is 
only a seeming one, nothing more than an aggre- 
gation, a mixing, a heap, a collection, or the like. 
Whether material or spiritual, a mechanism is all 
the same. A mechanical memory, a mechanical 



386 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

imagination, a mechanical habit, a mechanical act, 
all lack the presence and interpenetration of the 
mind." The elements have no inner connection. 

If we admit that true being is subject and object 
of itself, and attempt to think it in its immediate- 
ness, we shall think subject as undeveloped and 
object as undeveloped, but their opposition as fully 
developed, the one over against the other. This 
thought contains the moments subject and object 
as unreal, but their separation as real. The unde- 
veloped subject is a point, the undeveloped object 
is a point, but their separation is real — every point 
is outside of every other point. This gives us the 
idea of space, which is the idea of pure mechan- 
ism, carried one step further. For it is the 
thought which the absolute idea thinks of itself 
when it thinks of its own immediateness abstractly. 
But such abstract thought, of itself, cannot be ex- 
plained except by the Platonic conception of the 
Logos and the Christian conception of the recog- 
nition of the First Principle by the Logos. The 
Logos thinks its own derivation from the first, and 
in doing this it is obliged to think a stage of pure 
immediateness as the point from which its pro- 
cession commences. For derivation contains all 
stages of perfection in it, from the germ to the 
entelechy. 

This thought of space is the best clew to the 
idea of mechanism. The empty consciousness, 
with empty subject and empty object, but with 
real antithesis, is the separation and antithesis of 
empty points, the very conception of space. 



OBJECTIVITY. 387 

Take one step further, and the idea of time 
arises, and this is the clew to Hegel's next step in 
objectivity after mechanism — namely, chemism. 

The act of consciousness begins with the antith- 
esis of empty subject to empty object — a point op- 
posed to a point — and proceeds from this (the space 
concept) to the identification or recognition of the 
object by the subject (the time-concept). For the 
act of recognition or identification annuls the sep- 
aration or antithesis, and thus the points all be- 
come one, and a real one. The separation be- 
comes unreal — a cancelled separation. Time has 
one reality — the now, a single point of time ; all 
separation or extension is cancelled and unreal — a 
past or a future that exists not now. This is the 
dialectic connection of time and space in the Pro- 
cessio. 

Now, in mechanism we can see independence, or 
separation and antithesis, conjoined with empti- 
ness and indifference of distinctions. Hegel 
finds the dialectic of mechanism to begin in the 
contradiction between the perfect indifference 
of each part to every other and this perfect 
identity of properties and qualities. This, accord- 
ing to him, should produce the " mechanical pro- 
cess " — as a unity of mutually excluding objects. 
(a) Through action and reaction in the formal 
process, " a result arises that was not contained in 
the process at first ; the product is some external 
arrangement or order of the parts." (5) The sec- 
ond step, the real process, contains the dynamic 
side of the process, that of the influence of the 



388 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

stronger on the weaker, (c) There results a cen- 
tre of movement as the product. This brings us to 
" absolute mechanism/' with (a) its center,, and (i) 
its law. To be related to a center is to have an 
ideal. Gravitation is the ideal that each separate 
body possesses of the totality of matter. Each body 
feels, so to speak, ideally all the other bodies, in pro- 
portion to their magnitudes and distances. With 
centrality, or the ideal presence of the mechanical 
whole in each mechanical part, we have tran- 
scended the sphere of mechanism and come to the 
specification of objectivity — the stage that Hegel 
calls chemism. 

2. Chemism. 

"The expression Chemism ( Chemismus ) for the 
mutual relation ( VerJidltniss ) of contrasted ele- 
ments f Differ enz J in objectivity must not be taken 
here exclusively in its application to chemical ele- 
ments, so called. The meteorological process, the 
sexual relation of plants and animals, the spiritual 
relations of love and friendship, have for their 
formal ground this relation " (III. 196). The affin- 
ity seeks its own, and a process arises which is that 
of the ideal whole manifesting itself as the guiding 
principle in the process. Conformity to purpose 
or end — teleology — is a more explicit and fully 
realized form than this blind affinity. 

3. Teleology. 

"Teleology is the truth of mechanism.'' The 
three phases of the category are: (a) the subjective 
aim, (b) the means, (c) the realized aim. The aim 



OBJECTIVITY. 389 

or purpose may be external or internal : as inter- 
nal, it is life. Self-activity is manifested by inter- 
nal aims and purposes. A being that moves or 
acts with a purpose shows that it has ideals, and 
hence that it is a synthesis of its self and its not- 
self ; this synthesis takes the form of appetite or 
desire in animals. 

Hence, through the category of teleology, we 
return out of mere objectivity into subjectivity 
again, and now have subject-objectivity expressly 
before us — this is the realm of the idea proper. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 

REAL objective existence that is also subjective 
— for example life, intellect and will — be- 
longs to the stage of the idea, as Hegel conceives 
it. The immediate and most inadequate form of 
the idea is life. Intellect by itself is inadequate, 
and so is will by itself. The true concrete idea 
is the unity of life, intellect and will in such a 
manner that each of these is both the others. The 
Scholastics, as we have seen, defined God as the 
being in whom intellect and will are one. Such a 
definition is not easily understood. The philo- 
sophical student is apt to suppose that a being 
which is living and thinking and willing is meant. 
But this is not a correct apprehension. It is a being 
whose knowing is creating and whose willing is 
knowing. As we have often enough declared in 
this book, the essential thought here is that abso- 
lute reason knowing itself makes an object of itself 
and is, in so doing, both knowing itself and willing 
itself to be objective, in one and the same act. 
Man in knowing himself makes of himself an ob- 
ject, but not a real object — only a quasi object. 
But the absolute in knowing itself makes itself a 
real object. If to know is to create the object 
known, then the intellect and will are one and the 

390 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 391 

same act, for creating is an exercise of the 
will. 

The absolute idea therefore is a living which is 
both intellect and will — and a thinking which is 
both life and will ; finally, a willing that is also life 
and knowledge. 

Hegel expounds the doctrine of the idea under 
the following heads : m 

Chapter I 

1. Life: 

(a) The living individual. 

(b) The life-process. 

(c) The generic (Gattung). 

2. Intelligence {Erkennen): 

(a) The true. 

(1) Analytic knowing. 

(2) Synthetic knowing, 
(i) Definition. 

(ii) Classification, 
(iii) Theorem. 

(b) The good. 

Chapter II 

The absolute idea : 

(a) Method. 

(b) Dialectic. 

(c) System. 

In his treatment of the idea Hegel again makes 
an occasion for misunderstanding as to the nature 
of the first principle to which he has arrived as the 
final result of his logic. Glancing at the discus- 



392 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

sions under absolute idea, one might naturally sup- 
pose that we had arrived only at correct formal 
views about method and the dialectic treatment of 
the topics of a science. We have learned perhaps 
how to compose a work on philosophy ! For the 
sub-topics " method, dialectic progress, and sys- 
tem "■ seem to relate to form of exposition rather 
than absolute truth itself. Be this as it may, 
Hegel has bent his followers in this formal direc- 
tion and thus well-nigh ruined the influence of his 
philosophic school for a time. 

Looking closely at his treatment of idea, however, 
we discover plain evidence sufficient to convince us 
that he has in his thoughts always a personal first 
principle as the necessary result of his system. "We 
see well enough that his talk about method and dia- 
lectic treatment is meant merely for a statement of 
the nature of this highest personal self -activity. 

First he treats of the forms of the idea in the 
world arising from nature : life, intellect and will. 
Life has the power of self-determination — the liv- 
ing being can react against its environment and 
modify it. It can assimilate portions of its en- 
vironment, stripping off such determinations as it 
finds already present and imposing its own deter- 
minations in their place. The living being, if an 
animal, transmutes its food into cellular tissue of 
its own so that it can use it as instrument of feel- 
ing, thought and will. Even a plant transmutes 
its food into vegetable cells which will, like seeds, 
reproduce the entire plant in its exact type of 
individualitv. 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 393 

The self in self-activity does not get very fully 
realized in plant life. Every plant is a family of 
selves rather than a single self. But in the ani- 
mal this single self gets realized in the form of 
feeling. 

In feeling, the self-activity commences an ideal 
reproduction of its environment. It determines 
itself in imitation of the determination of the en- 
vironment and thereby makes what would be exter- 
nal limitation an inner limitation and for itself — it 
feels its environment. Desire is feeling accompa- 
nied with the additional sense of self-hood — the 
self extends ideally beyond its limit. The self 
should be a synthesis of its real organism and its 
environment, and desire expresses this. 

Knowledge is possible only when the self is real- 
ized as Ego. The pure generality of the Ego (self- 
determining as opposed to the self-determined) 
admits a process of ideal determinations that de- 
fines the environment and yet can be distinguished 
from it. The infinite variety of nature can be all 
reproduced by definition of universals. Hence the 
memory, mother of the muses, arises through a 
higher realization of self-determination than oc- 
curs in simple feeling. From the exercise of the 
power to recall comes a consciousness of this gen- 
eral power to reproduce or represent, and general 
ideas are now born. 

Hegel makes the generic, as it appears in life 
and reproduction, the transition from plant life (as 
mere self-preservation by aid of assimilation of 
nourishment) to the higher realization of the idea 



394 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

in intelligence. That which is generic or the re- 
producer of the species in the lower forms becomes 
the Ego in the higher forms. 

The theoretical activity of the mind seeks to 
know the true, the practical activity seeks to 
realize the good through the will. Hegel shows 
how opposite these activities are while yet both are 
forms of the same self-realization of the idea. The 
cognitive faculty seeks the true as objectively exist- 
ent in the world. The conative faculty (as Ham- 
ilton calls the will) seeks to make the true exist in 
the world where it is not yet extant. 

The analytic cognition selects out of the world 
of experience the universal or general — separating 
the abiding from the perishing. The synthetic 
cognition reproduces the particular determination, 
defining what is general by adding determinations 
to it. 

(1) "Definition contains the three moments of 
the notion : The universal as the genus proximum, 
the particular as the determinateness of the species 
(qualitas specified) and the individual as the object 
defined" (Encyclopcedia, § 229, Zusatz). 

(2) Classification is a synthetic operation in 
which is expressed the necessary relation of all the 
determinations of the universal. The contents are 
exhibited exhaustively. This is a higher realiza- 
tion of the notion than the definition. 

(3) The theorem, however, realizes the notion 
still more completely as it "exhibits the object in 
the conditions and forms of its real extant being." 

With the completion of the theoretical cognition 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 395 

the mind arrives at the knowledge of the ideal — 
the notion is being as it ought to be. Hence arises 
the idea of the good and the will to realize it. 

Self-determination that imposes its own forms 
on the objective is the will. The crude immediate 
will delights to feel its power by destroying what- 
ever it finds and imposing its own forms on actual- 
ity. While theoretic intelligence probes under- 
neath objective appearance and does not rest until 
it finds the absolute, the will power on the other 
hand pronounces against all reality as imperfect 
and in need of re-formation. 

But the dialectic of will-power leads it upward 
to the ethical and the recognition of the ethical in 
the world-process. Providence rules events for 
good. With this insight into the good the finite 
realizations of the idea arrive at a recognition of 
the absolute idea whose theoretical and practical 
activities are one — whose thinking is willing, in 
short. 

THE ABSOLUTE IDEA. 

" The absolute idea as rational notion which 
finds in reality its actualization is, on account of 
this immediateness of its objective identity, a re- 
turn to the category of life" (III. 317). That is 
to say : The reality of this identity of intellect and 
will which defines the perfect realization of the 
notion is an individual being. "But," he con- 
tinues, "it holds this form of immediateness can- 
celled and forms within itself the highest tension 
of opposites. The notion is not only soul, but free 
subjective notion which exists for itself and there- 



396 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

fore possesses personality — the will-power (der 
Prahtische) which determines itself objectively and 
as person is an impenetrable atomic subjectivity. 
But this is not merely excluding individuality, but 
also for itself existing universality and intelligence, 
and it sees in its objective environment its own 
self, made objective. All else is error, confusion, 
opinion, strife, caprice and perishableness ; but the 
absolute idea is being, immortal life, self -knowing 
truth, and all truth " (III. 317-318). 

" The absolute idea is the only object and con- 
tent of philosophy. Since it contains all deter- 
minateness in itself and its nature is to return into 
itself through its self-determination or specializa- 
tion, it has many forms of activity and it is the 
business of philosophy to recognize them, as its 
forms. Nature and spirit [i. e., human history] 
are the two opposite modes in which this realiza- 
tion takes place. Art and religion are varieties of 
its method of seizing itself and giving itself appro- 
priate realization; philosophy has the same con- 
tent and the same aim as art and religion ; but it 
is the highest mode of apprehending the absolute 
idea because its method is the highest, 
namely, that of the notion itself " (III. 318). 

How the method of the idea determines the 
logic of pure thought which is its highest activity, 
and h»w it finds its beginning in the immediate 
and progresses through the dialectic and forms a 
totality as a system, Hegel discusses in detail in 
this closing chapter of his logic and almost justifies, 
as we have said, the criticism that his system ends 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 397' 

with a prescription for the investigation and expo- 
sition of truth rather than with the presentation 
of truth itself. He emerges however, from this 
discussion of scientific form and returns to his re- 
sult. " Every new stage of the onward progress 
[of this system of philosophical investigation of 
pure thought] arrives at what is more determined 
and definite — it is a return to itself rather than a 
going outward, and the greater the extension the 
greater the intension. The richest is therefore the 
concretest and most subjective, and that which 
withdraws itself into the simplest depth is the 
mightiest and most comprehensive. The highest 
and sharpest point of the summit is pure personal- 
ity which alone through its absolute dialectic, its 
essential activity, holds all things within itself and 
at the same time frees itself from complication 
with them (sich mm Freisten macht) and holds 
itself in absolute simplicity which is first immedi- 
ateness and universality w (III. 339). 

" According to this method every step forward 
is a step in further determination and in further 
removal from the indeterminate beginning ; this is 
also a return — a process of finding the grounds of 
the thought with which we began " (III. 339). 
We go from what is given us to its presuppositions. 
The ultimate presupposition is absolute reason. 

NATURE. 

In the idea of the good as pointed out, the mind 
first arrives at the truly divine, the absolute. The 
transition from logic to the philosophy of nature is 



398 HEGEI/S LOGIC. 

found in the unity of the notion and its realization, 
as he tells us : " Since the idea posits itself as the 
absolute unity of the pure notion and its reality, 
and consequently assumes the form of immediate 
being, it is, as the totality of this form, nature" 
(III. 342). This statement is not a very adequate 
one because it sounds like the former dialectical 
statements which led us on to a new and higher 
category. In that case we should not have arrived 
at the conclusion of the logic of pure thought, for 
nature would be a higher step. Hegel is aware of 
this and therefore adds at once : " But this is not 
a becoming or a transition as above, when we took 
the step from the totality of the subjective notion 
[syllogism of syllogisms] to objectivity, or when we 
passed over from subjective aim (Zioeck) to life. 
The pure idea into which the reality of the notion 
is elevated is rather an absolute emancipation 
(Befreiung) [i. e., emancipation from undeveloped 
possibilities which impel it on to further growth]. 
There is no further immediate determination for it 
that is not at the same time posited as the total 
notion. In this freedom [from lower, unde- 
veloped forms] it is not subject any more to tran- 
sitions ; its simplicity is perfectly transparent 
and has the form of the abiding notion. The 
transition to nature here therefore means that 
the idea emits itself with freedom (sich selbst frei 
entlasst) in the form of nature, but at the same 
time abiding secure in its own repose within itself. 
[Here take note that Hegel does not hold that 
idea loses itself in nature, but transcends it.] And 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 399 

on account of this freedom the form of determi- 
nateness in nature takes on the same freedom [or 
independent existence] and appears as externality 
in the forms of time and space existing devoid of 
subjectivity. In so far as this is looked upon as 
abstract immediateness of being it is seen by con- 
sciousness as mere objectivity and external life ; 
but, in so far as seen from the idea, nature is the 
totality of the notion and the science of the divine 
cognition of nature. This first resolve (Entschluss) 
of the pure idea to determine itself as external idea 
results however only in positing the mediation out 
of which the notion lifts itself into freedom again 
— into existence returned into itself out of external- 
ity — and perfects this emancipation through the 
science of spirit [the self-consciousness of the in- 
visible church] and finds the highest notion of 
itself in the logical science of pure thought as the 
self-comprehending notion " (III. 342-343). With 
this remark Hegel closes his large logic. In the 
Encyclopedia at the close, he speaks of the idea, 
in a form existing for sense-perception (an- 
schauende Idee), as nature. "The absolute free- 
dom of the idea, however, is not a mere freedom 
from the lower forms of life and finite cognition, 
but its freedom in its absolute truth, in which it 
resolves to emit itself entire as a reflection of itself 
( Wiederschein) in the form of immediate idea, i. 
e. y in the moment of particularity or of first deter- 
mination and other-being " * (Encyclopedia, § 244). 

* Eothe, in his ethics, conceives the absolute as resolving of his 
own free choice, to turn his pure not-me into a reflection of his me, 



400 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

This does not quite admit of interpretation as 
the creation of nature through the Logos, for it 
makes nature to be the Logos direct. The only 
and sufficient objection to this is that it makes 
it necessary that the absolute in knowing himself 
shall know finitude direct, recognizing it in him- 
self, or that he shall himself pass through stages 
of imperfect knowing. It does not explain f ully the 
emancipation (Befreiung) from finite determina- 
tions because it does not explain how they arose 
through the resolve to make new ones, although 
the context makes it probable that altruism- 
divine goodness — prompts this divine gift of the 
idea to externality. But under it all it is clear 
that Hegel retains the thought that the finite limi- 
tations from which we have escaped by aid of the 
dialectic — the categories of being and essence — are 
in some way so connected with the absolute idea 
that it generates them out of itself as well as frees 
itself from them. Were this not so, how could this 
dialectical logic, whose sole function is to widen 
these imperfect notions into the true notion — how 
could this logic be spoken of as the form in which 
the idea returns out of its externality in time and 
space ? Xo doubt nature " comes to its truth " in 
rational conscious beings ; these rational beings 
again reach a knowledge of God in pure thought 
which apprehends him as absolute person with will 

i. e., into a process of development and progressive realization of 
the divine self: Without this creative act, the not-me would for- 
ever remain a mere possibility without actuality either of good or of 
evil. Hegel it will be observed makes the creative act to be a free 
one though not an accidental or arbitrary one. 



THE IDEA AS PEKSOSTALITY. 401 

and intellect identical. In this sense Hegel could 
say that the idea finds its highest notion of itself 
in the logic of pure thought. But on the other 
hand the logic of pure thought is only the dialecti- 
cal process by which man (not God) purifies him- 
self from his lower categories and rises to the only 
true and adequate one, namely the absolute idea. 
The logic is then a sort of phenomenology — a 
voyage of discovery to find the one true pure 
thought. 

The idea being once comprehended as the 
higher unity of intellect and will (in this Hegel 
and Aquinas agree), it follows that it is perfect 
subject and perfect object and complete personality 
in each. The First knows himself in the Second; 
this is not nature even as totality. But the Second 
knowing himself as derived creates a world of be- 
coming and derivative being which rises from 
space and time through matter up to organic be- 
ings and finally to man. Man has his forms of 
emancipation from externality and these culminate 
in philosophy and theology in an insight into the 
nature of God (" The vision of God ")-. 

If Hegel had not found his logical forms of be- 
ing and essence mere defective categories he could 
not have treated them dialectically. He leaves the 
logic at the end without explaining how the abso- 
lute idea generates them. For the absolute idea 
resolves to create nature and does not generate 
these abstract and inadequate categories of being 
and essence until they rise in the minds of his 
rational creatures on their way from savagery to- 
wards divine knowledge. 



402 HEGEl/S LOGIC. 

In his treatment of the method, dialectic pro- 
gress and syllogism, however, Hegel seems for a 
moment to suppose that he finds those categories 
of being and essence directly through the absolute 
idea. But it is only a seeming, for he proves only 
that the application of the notion as method 
necessitates the testing of each concept through its 
universality. If a category can be by itself, and 
does not presuppose any other one to make it pos- 
sible, then it is the highest and final category. 
This of course will direct us to the beginning with 
pure immediateness or pure being. But this is 
formal and relates to the exposition and not to the 
absolute truth which one reaches at the end of the 
exposition — nor to the absolute truth that pre- 
cedes the finite and imperfect as its presupposi- 
tion. 

The dialectic is no infinite progress, but it 
brings us to a final category when a further con- 
tinuation simply repeats the idea already reached 
— when further progress is simply going-together-' 
with-itself, that is to say when itself is its own 
other and this explicitly — not implicitly as has 
been found in the case of the categories of being 
and essence. This thought is seized by Hegel in 
its fulness and if we criticise him for his view of 
nature we must not misunderstand his attitude and 
attribute ordinary pantheism to him as though he 
teaches that nature is a necessary moment of God 
instead of being a free creation. It is a great mis- 
take to say that Hegel holds God to be a becoming. 
If by becoming one means the process of life or the 



THE IDEA AS PERSONALITY. 403 

process of consciousness, of course he may say even 
of the orthodox view that it holds God to be a be- 
coming. But Hegel makes out the absolute to be 
a person — intellect and will in their highest 
potence. There is no fatalism in connection with 
such a theory. But there is certainty in regard to 
the actions of a perfect being, nevertheless. A 
reasonable being will act reasonably because it is 
free, while a being under fate will act because im- 
pelled from without. 

The method of the idea, its mode of action, is to 
descend into the depths of non-being and mere 
possibility in order to create and bring up beings 
into its ow r n perfection. It condescends through 
grace to impart its being unceasingly to new indi- 
viduals which although they begin to be, yet enter 
on immortal careers. 

FINIS. 




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